Walking with a Limp

Walking with a Limp

A God Thing

Have you ever had a “God moment?” 

Those times when things are just going so well that you cant think of any other reason they are going this well other than something that is much much bigger than you and bigger than whatever is going on around you had to be intricately involved?

There is this phrase that Christians use, “It was a God thing.”

There is this mind set among religious folk that once you accept and enter in, everything is going to go just how you want john 3:16 it, and God is going to open all sorts of doors for you to walk through. 

Which, of course, means that if things aren’t going how you want them to, if things aren’t falling into place, then you are in someway working outside of this God’s will or intention and He is hindering whatever it is from happening.

A ‘Try-Out’

Recently, I was going through the process of applying for a job as a Pastor. 

Full-time. 

Which is a huge load for a 20 year old.

It started as a conversation with a friend.   We were just sitting around talking and all of a sudden resumes were written and turned in, phone calls were being made, schedules written on, and I found myself at this church preaching in front of a congregation.  

It was a pretty long process, but it just … started happening. 

I never actually thought I would get the job.  I thought they would see I wasn’t ordained, or I hadn’t finished school yet, or that I was only 20, and toss the resume in the trash.  But then, one night I got a call and was asked if I would come back to preach and, afterward, the church would vote to have me be their Pastor.

Now, at this point there were a lot of things filling up my headspace, but the dominant thought was that I had a baby - and I wasn’t married.  You’d think this would just come up in conversation, but sin has a way of hiding itself, doesn’t it?  We have away of burying it in the sand.  I knew, before I could accept something this important I would have to let them know.  I figured if I did the right thing, God would be there with me.

When the Sunday came I must have looked nervous, one of the elders came up to me and said, “If you’re nervous, don’t be.  You got the job the rest of this is all just formalities.  You got it.”

I had the job. 

I knew at this point if I didn’t get it, it wasn’t because I was too young or in school or anything else.

If I didn’t get the job it was because I had sinned and the church couldn’t accept it.

Then I told them, and once they knew everything changed.  When you do something, and people don’t like it, they suddenly look at you like you’re a different person. As if I ran over their favorite cat.

“Israel: God’s People”

Do you know what Israel means?  It comes from the Hebrew language, and to understand what God is doing with Israel, you have to understand Jacob.  If you know anything about Jacob in the early pages of the Bible, you could probably assume it means “Mamma’s Boy.” 

Jacob was a twin, so thing get rolling pretty early.  He liked to stay at home in the tents and do things like cook stew (which his mom loved), while his brother, Esau, like to go out and do really manly things like hunt, which his dad, Isaac, loved (I’m assuming Esau must have had a really manly mustache.)  After a few questionable decisions he made with his mother, namely taking his brothers blessing, Jacob ends up running away from home.   Esau threatens to kill him and he takes that as a clue he should leave town.

At some point Jacob decides to go back home, to meet his brother.

 What you’ve done has a way of coming back to you and at some point you have to face it. 

Jacob has to face Esau, but he scared. 

He ends up alone by the side of a river and, just as you would expect, a man comes to wrestle him. 

This, of course, is the first instance of MMA.

They had been fighting all night when the man hits Jacob in the thigh.  Jacob is fighting.   By the end of the fight, Jacob is renamed “Israel.”  In Hebrew “Israel” has the idea of “wrestling with God, or God wrestling with you.”  The first detail given about, what is soon to be God’s nation of people, is when Jacob encounters God he walks away with a limp.

Facing Esau

We all have to face our Esau’s.  Sometimes facing our Esau’s means coming to the realization that something we have done is wrong.  Sometimes it comes in the form of an apology.   And sometimes facing Esau is standing in front of a church hanging up your dirty laundry because you think it is the right thing to do.

 A couple weeks later, I found myself waiting outside the church during an elders meeting to find out what was going to happen.

They ended up telling me that I couldn’t have the job.

Before I left the meeting I was in tears.  I had quit my job, I was told this was going to happen, I have a kid and I had no more income, and I lost it because I was just trying to do the right thing.  I took the step of faith trusting that God was going to be there for me, and the door was slammed in my face.

A God Thing

Sometimes things don’t go how we want, or hope, or expect.

Sometimes we put everything we have into something and it blows up in our faces. 

Sometimes really bad, hard, and painful things happen when you do the right thing.

When we get a “God thing” mind-set and have the idea that if we are doing God’s will everything will go as planned, or God will be with you and open all sorts of doors, we make a huge mistake, and could end up with a slammed door and a bloody nose.

Maybe sometimes, when things fall apart and something really difficult and horrible happens to us, it isn’t because it is against God’s will or a “sign” that God doesn’t want it to happen.

You can be doing everything exactly the way God wants you too and still end up nailed to a cross.

Following Jesus’ teachings are really hard.  Not only is being a Christian difficult, but the results of doing those teachings can be really painful as well.

Things fall apart, but they are falling.  When things are falling there is that chance that they could be falling right into place.

I sat in my car that night after being broken and ripped apart. I was fractured, splintered, and I walked away with a limp.

And it was a God thing.