The Old Is Gone - The New Is Here

Ten years... it had been ten years since I had attended a conference or workshop with ministry friends and co-workers.  The last time, I had sat in the Gwinnet Center in Atlanta at a conference.  I was much younger, though not young.  The church I was serving in was experiencing changes from one generation to another which is an appropriate succession, but a painful one if you're aging in an increasingly youth-obsessed form of Christianity.  With every additional candle on my birthday cake, I felt more and more out of step and eventually it became obvious to more than just me.  

I entered the last session of that conference in Atlanta late.  My pastor had allowed me to visit some dear friends over the dinner break, and it was so sweet to see them after decades apart.  I would have been seated on time with the group but found when I returned that they had moved and weren't seated where we had been all day prior.  With a dying cellphone and a weak community charging station, I struggled to find where I ought to be or even make contact with anyone from the group.  I think that was somewhat of a death knell in my tenure at that ministry.  As guileless and innocent as that course of events was, something shifted in my relationships there and I felt it.  

So when I finally found my seat on the main floor (not the third tier as we were before) and began to be led into worship with Phil Wickham, the word from the Lord that came to me was as surprising as it was timely.  Ten rows from the massive speakers, we sang, "You are holy, great and mighty, the moon and the stars declare who you are.  And I'm so unworthy, but still you love me.  Forever my heart will sing of how great You are."  And even though I was among thousands, God was with me personally and whispered to me, "don't be afraid... everything is about to change."  Even that close to the speakers, it was all I heard.

A month later, I had resigned.  A year later, my dad died.  Fourteen months later, I moved back to Kansas.  And those were just the beginning of the changes.  I could never have imagined the depth of what the Lord meant by "everything" when he said everything would change.  The only way I can describe the ensuing nine years is to tell you His word to me was true - everything changed.   Everything died.  Every little bit in me that reeked of self, every confidence I had in anything other than Christ, every pleasure, nearly every love - all of it - everything died in that nine years.  More accurately, everything that needed to die died.  It was nearly a decade of involuntary soul-slaughter.

The Pioneer Woman posted these photos on 
Instagram of this overgrown field
that had not been burned...

Ten years later I walked into the Apprentice Gathering in town thankful for the opportunity to attend, and (I'm not gonna lie) a little afraid that same kind of message would come from the Lord.  Yes, I was eager to hear from Him, but a little leery of what He might say.  I'm not sure I could go through something like the last 9 years again.  As I sat among a handful of my new co-workers, I mentioned the history of the last conference I attended and what came as a result of that encounter.  Even recounting the experience to them made me nervous - what if they too agreed with the assessment that I was old and irrelevant, easily replaced?  

Now, I will acknowledge I am old - I'm in the last 3rd of my life God-willing.  And I do know how replaceable I really am, and I'm finally ok with that.  I have value beyond what I do for income. (Wow!  It took me way too long to learn that one.)  But in that 100-year-old sanctuary with light pouring in through stained glass, my co-worker spoke such life over me.  One sentence healed my soul - "We're all so glad you're here [on our church staff].  You add so much to this team."

This beautiful field across the road
had been burned.

In that moment I realized everything really did change.  Everything died, but more importantly, everything was made new. And my soul sighed with relief. 

There is really only one way to describe what God's done in me over the last decade.  Let me give you a visual... If you've ever lived in an agrarian culture like Kansas, you get used to burn season.  It's when farmers and ranchers torch their land in controlled fires in order to kill all the undergrowth that's keeping the land from producing the right crops.  Kill the briars and weeds.  Burn the stubble and roots.  Let the ground heal from too much of everything so that the simplicity of one thing can grow and flourish.  Everything dies so one thing can remain.

Over the last several years, the fields of my life were scorched and left black as night with few embers remaining.  But now the earth is healed and ready to flourish.  The old has passed away.  The new has come, and it's green, and verdant, and God-willing, it will be fruitful.  That's what I'm most thankful for this year.  I'm thankful God burned my life down.  I'm really thankful that like my Dad used to say, "I never gave up on God, and He never gave up on me."   I'm thankful for second chances.  I'm thankful for life-breathing co-workers (who probably don't even know that's what they are.)