In Arabia

There are not many things more frustrating than when your computer freezes up. You've been there before. You'll be watching a movie, writing a paper, or facebook-stalking a cutie, and suddenly your computer decides it's a good time to take a break. So you wait for a few moments, you hit "Control-Alt-Delete," you mutter all the words that your parents never let you say growing up, you cry a little, and eventually you just shut the machine off and try again, dreaming about what it would be like to be one of those cool kids who sits in Starbucks with a Macbook listening to some musician you've never heard of before.

Sometimes I feel like my life is like that frozen computer. It feels like my life gets stuck. Like it's been put on pause somehow. It's gotten stuck in the mud, and I rev the engine, but the wheels just keep spinning while I sink a little deeper into the muck.

Early adulthood is an interesting time of life. It's a period during which many people begin what you might think of as "real life," and over the past couple years, it feels like many of my friends are setting out on this journey. Being a Bible college graduate, most of my friends are involved in ministry in some way, just as I am, but I hear of my peers beginning full-time ministries at healthy, growing churches where there is an atmosphere of vitality and excitement. I hear of friends getting married and starting families. I hear of friends looking for real places to live and cooking meals that you can't just pull out of the freezer and stick in the microwave. I look around at my social circle, and it feels like everyone else is moving forward.

But then I look at my own life, and it doesn't feel like that. It feels stuck. On occasion, someone will ask me about what's new in my life, and my answer is typically something like, "Oh, not much...still going to school, preaching, and working." And that about sums up my life, to be honest. I'm in my seventh year of post-high school education, so I still spend some time reading and researching and writing papers. I work at a part-time retail job that I really don't care for at all. And I preach on Sundays at a small rural church, and while I'm thankful for that opportunity and love the people there, it's a difficult ministry, and it can be really tough to always feel jazzed about it.

Other tell me about their exciting ministry opportunities, new relationships, and general life-progression, and all the while, I wonder why my life doesn't feel like that. Am I stuck? Is this all there is for me? Is there any purpose for my life to be what it is right now?

One of my favorite sermons that I heard in a chapel service while I was in college was preached by my former professor Shane Wood. (If you care to, you can hear the sermon here.) In the sermon, Shane teaches on Paul's experience on the way to Damascus, and his main thought is that all of us want that Damascus Road experience, but few of us want to go where that road leads. We want the Damascus Road; that is, we want the clouds to part and for God to speak to us in a powerful way. Also, we want what we see in Paul's ministry--we want to be like Paul in Corinth or Athens or Ephesus or Rome. What we don't want, however, is to go where the Damascus Road leads, which according to Shane, is to obscurity.

After Saul became a Christian, he didn't immediately start traveling the world as a missionary. In fact, Galatians 1 says that he instead went to Arabia for three years, and what is perhaps most interesting about this fact is that it isn't all that interesting. The book of Acts doesn't even talk about it. We don't really know what exactly Saul was doing during those three years, but we have to assume he was being prepared for the life of ministry God had for him. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul became Paul. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul was prepared for what would happen to him as he preached throughout the world. Because of those three years in obscurity, Saul's ministry was fruitful and effective.

As I was getting ready to graduate college, I decided to continue my education at seminary because I felt that it would better prepare me for my ministry. I want to be the best that I can be. And I hope that's what will happen. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction and that I was more ready for ministry two years ago than I am now. But I still try to hang on to the hope that when I'm done with school down the road, I'll be a more able tool for God to use.

Maybe you're in a spot in life where you feel much like I do. If so, I guess my encouragement to you would be to use your time of preparation well. I don't say this because I'm a good example of someone who is doing that, because I don't think I am. I struggle with this so much, and it becomes so easy for me to grow cynical and pessimistic, to constantly ask "What if I had made different decisions? Would my life be in a better place now?" In in those moments, I need to remind myself that God uses his servants' sojourn in obscurity to prepare them for lives of ministry and leadership, and I need to try not to compare my current state of affairs with those of others.

I often wish I could somehow fast-forward over the next 18 months to the point that I graduate, when I anticipate "real life" beginning. But maybe  a better approach is to be fully invested in this time of preparation as a time of preparation. My classwork in seminary can prepare me for the rest of my life. My ministry in the boonies can prepare me. Living by myself in the box of my urban apartment can prepare me. Even trying to maintain my life and my sanity while working retail on Black Friday next week can prepare me. And through all of this, I hope to emerge a better disciple, a better minister, a better thinker, a better friend.