Grace to Finish a Semester and a Year

1 more Monday and 2 assignments to go ya'll and I will be done with the first semester of my second year at Union Theological Seminary. 28 days and I will officially have a year under my belt as pastor of a youth church.

I've still got my mind and I've still got congregants, and for that I praise God for Amazing, Unquestionable, Ridiculous Grace. Yeah, they ABSOLUTELY all deserve to be capitalized...thanks for asking. lol. I feel like I've spoken enough about school already - if not to whoever's reading this, then certainly to whoever happens to be sitting next to me and asks about my day. So, let's talk about this pastor business.

Man! I've got issues. I'm a minimalist...I like to get by without big committee meetings that inconvenience people by forcing them to be all in one physical space at the same time, but I'm also forgetful, so I don't remember to tell people that I'd like to do away with the meetings and have email/text message check-ins instead. Then, people think that I don't appreciate their efforts or approve of them and would rather do things myself (but they never tell me this, they just act it out) and I get frustrated about having to do everything myself (even though I never investigate this or express myself, I just act it out). Dangit...I'm messy!

I've spent a good portion of my life being a loner (I think the only reason God allows me to date is so I won't continue down this path until the point where I become so consumed with myself that any outside world ceases to exist. HA!) and though I began my life as a reader (I've so slacked off in recent time, I blame it on school which makes the thought of reading altogether unappealing) and was transported to many different worlds by my imagination...the real world, this one we're in...I just don't get it. I don't understand why my young congregants do the things they do. I don't understand why their parents do the things they do. Heck, I don't understand my own human nature sometimes. I am detached, plain and simple. Is it anything but grace that I preach from a woefully distant and inadequate starting point and yet people find some nugget to take away that enriches their lives? Is it anything but God working through me by virtue of his will and my willingness? I spend so much time looking at my limitations: time constraints, quirks and personality deficiencies, an at times less than dedicated life, and the fact that I'm not always as convinced as I give off, that I question more days than is probably safe to admit whether I should be doing this or for how much longer I will be doing it.

If successful sermons and personal growth have not proven to me that I'm in the right place yet (and honestly, that jury is still out for me...and I appreciate the people in my life that let me be honest about my journey), I can at least say that God is prospering me where I am, while I try to hear Him about where I'm going.

Amen. Because that's what you say at the end of each grace.