From Public School Teacher to Seminary Student (Part 2)

Here is Part 2 of the story (once again written by my lovely bride)

This Old House

Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle, and according to the command of the Lord they remained in camp; then according to the command of the Lord they set out. Numbers 9:20

The passage above has become a dear one to me. God prepared my heart with it over a year ago as I studied the journey of the Israelites and began to get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be settled into a place and then told to move. It was a precious lesson about faith and obedience. Though the Israelites had the visual presence of God within a cloud and knew clearly just when to move, we too have been given guidance in His word. As the Lord began to press upon our hearts and show us that we are to move to California, we knew the next step was packing up our tent – a.k.a. selling our house.

As we discussed all the details involved in selling a house, we faced a very real fear…what if it didn’t sell? Would we still move our family to California for Dave to attend seminary? After much prayer and discussion, we decided that yes, we would still go whether or not the house sold. A calling is a calling…period. It’s not a conditional or contingent agreement with God about Him doing this and then we’ll do that. It is a step of faith…trusting Him. Worrying would be failure to believe God at His word. So, we resolved to do everything we could to sell the house, but to go to California even if it didn’t sell.

Over the weeks that followed, we began to do what everyone who wants to sell their home does…clean, declutter, paint, etc. As I moved from room to room, memories came flooding back. This is the first and only home we have ever owned. This is the home I brought my first baby home to…and my second…and my third. Every corner seemed to tell a story. As I went through the bedrooms, I remembered nursing and rocking each child in the rocker by the nursery window. I remembered cuddling up in bed reading bedtime stories and tending to sick children through the night. The basement brought back memories of all the family movie nights – eating pizza and giggling until past bedtime. Then there was the living room with the front window seat that our new puppy has claimed as his own this past year. And the comfy recliner that Dave sits in when he reads to the kids at night. And last but not least - the kitchen with its memories of baking cookies with the kids, hanging out around the island with friends after bible study, and Dave’s Saturday morning French toast. As I washed dishes that night, I looked out my kitchen window and saw my children playing happily on the swing set in the back yard. I pondered a moment about how this might be one of the last times I look out this particular window watching my children play in this yard, on this swing set. I know it all sounds a little silly, but it’s true. I got very sentimental and nostalgic during that time. It was wonderfully bittersweet. I was more and more endeared to my family as I thought about all the memories that have been made in this old house.

It also made me a little nervous. This house is all I have ever known. This street, this neighborhood, this town…it is my home. I know every little knook and cranny. I know and love all the little quirks. I love that I have to lean against the front door to get the dead-bolt to lock. I love that the floor creaks right in front of the window. I love that you have to jiggle the handle on the toilet when it runs. I love that the neighbor kids come over every afternoon and know where I keep the snacks. I love living two minutes from the pharmacy, the grocery store and the library. This is my home and it is comfortable. Will I ever love another home, another neighborhood, another community this much? Especially one in southern California, in L.A.? It didn’t seem likely to me at that point and I began to fret and worry. What were we thinking? Why in the world would we leave a place like this…and for what again? Seminary?

As the doubts and fears whirled around in my mind, I wondered if Sarah might have had some similar feelings. She didn’t even know where they were going…just that Abraham said God told him they had to go. We might assume they didn’t have much back in that time period, but Sarah’s house was nothing to wink at. Historical records show they had over a dozen rooms and at least two courtyards. I wonder if she went around each room reminiscing before they left. I wonder if she had doubts and fears.

In His great compassion, the Lord comforted me and reminded me that I have nothing to fear and that He is watching over my life. I am continually amazed by how personal God is, caring about the details of my life. I am also continually blessed by His faithfulness, especially when I am faithless. During a season when I should be the most “spiritual” and spirit-filled, I found myself busy and distracted. While I should have been praying and reading the word, I was consumed with all the details of preparing the house to sell, when only one thing was needful. Thankfully, the Lord sought me out and delivered me out from all my fear and anxiety. One day while I was packing up and cleaning up the basement, I put in a CD called "Redemption" by Sons of Korah. As I went about my work, the words of Psalm 121 hit me like a mac truck. I stopped packing and sat down on the couch and listened and wept. It was like the Lord was speaking right to me.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

What was I worried about? The same God who has watched over my life the past twelve years in this house promises to watch over me forever. He does not slumber. He will not let my foot slip.

Yes, it was time to make this real. So, after much painting and primping, this old house was ready to show. So, we listed it on a Friday and put the sign in the yard. By Monday we had our first showing. As I flitted around the house fluffing and primping its pretty walls and floors, I thought about who might be coming and what they would think. Would it be a young couple just starting out like we were 12 years ago or a retired couple, or a family with kids like us? We threw the kids and the dog in the car and went to the park during the showing. By nine o’clock that night, we had an offer. It had only been four days and the first couple to walk through the house bought it. It was almost too good to be true.

“Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God.” 2 Samuel 7:18-19

Was God really this clear? So far in our lives, He has been. Perhaps he knows we are of little faith and need a big neon signs that say “go this way!”

As Dave and I sat on the couch that night, we just held each other and wept. It was a happy and a sad cry. We were so thankful to God and praising Him for his guidance and provision, and yet sad to say good-bye to this life here. Selling the house made it real. It was time to go.

Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out, but when it lifted they set. Numbers 9:22

From Public School Teacher to Seminary Student (Part 1)

This is the first of a series of entries sharing how God has been calling me to full-time vocational ministry. My family and I will be moving from Ankeny, Iowa, to California this summer and I will begin classes at The Master's Seminary this June. I have been a public school English teacher (both junior high and high school) for 14 years.

This first entry was written by my beautiful bride, Christy. You can visit her blog here.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Genesis 12:1

We have often thought what great faith Abram had to obey God, even though he did not know where He was going (Hebrews 11:8). Indeed, he did have great faith, but it was not something he mustered up on his own, for faith itself is a gift (Ephesians 2:8,9) What matters is the object of faith, namely Jesus Christ. We’re not patriarchs, but recently Dave and I have felt a bit like Abram and we are thankful that it’s not up to us to muster the faith to obey. For we are about to embark upon a journey that involves leaving everything we know to answer a call to ministry.

We have sensed a spirit of preparation for something for quite some time. We both felt that we were living in a season of preparation for some kind of ministry…we just weren’t sure what it was yet. I suspect it was born in our hearts some time during 2005, which turned out to be a spiritual landmark year of sorts. Not only was that the year we switched churches and our son was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, it was also the year we attended our first missions conference. At the end of the service, the pastor invited anyone who felt called to missions to come down front and pray. He made it clear that this public profession did not necessarily mean you were headed out on the next plane to Zimbabwe, but that you were answering the call to missions whether that was in your own neighborhood or half way around the world. Before we knew it we were out of our seats and down in front praying. It was one of those moments I will never forget – when Dave looked at me, his face and eyes had the look of exactly what I was also feeling. He said, “I have to go down there,” and I responded with, “I know. I’m coming too.” We were both feeling a clear “call” to serve the Lord, whatever and wherever that meant. We got up and walked hand in hand to the front as if to say, “Yes, Lord. Here am I. Send me.” That was five years ago. Much has happened in our lives during that time and God has allowed us to be used by Him right here at home, even through our own failures and frailties. Mostly, though, it has been a season of personal growth and pruning, of sanctification, of coming to know Him deeper. Through it all, God has continued to increase our desire to serve Him full time in vocational ministry, finding ourselves most filled with joy when we can share the word with others.

While it is true that God can be glorified through secular employment (1 Corith. 10:31, Colossians 3:23), Dave’s job as a public high school teacher was becoming increasingly challenging as his desire to share the gospel and teach the word continued to grow. Depressed and lost students approached him constantly with questions and cries for help. He was deeply bothered by the fact that he couldn’t share the hope of Christ; he felt his tongue was bolted and his hands were tied. The fact that he was prohibited to share the gospel while at school, the one thing he lives to do, was weighing very heavily upon him. It was painful to know the answer and not be able to share it with a lost world. So many people have told us that he is a “light in the darkness” and there is no denying God has used him over the years. However, the reality is that apart from the gospel, his positive moral lifestyle was futile and powerless. The gospel of Jesus Christ is our only hope and is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16) and “faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17).

While we have known for quite some time that Dave was soon to be called out of the public school system, we weren’t sure what we were being called to yet. We needed wisdom and the Lord is faithful to give it when we ask (James 1:5). He promises to grant it to us through the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10

As we look to Jesus Christ, we are instructed in the path of life.He, Himself is wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. What a blessing to know that as we come to know Him deeper, He guides us in each and every step of our lives.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The Spirit of counsel and might,

The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11:2

So, forgetting what lies behind, we strained forward to what lie ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). As we continued to pray and study the word, we were blessed exponentially. We began to understand that this wasn’t about knowing what we were being called to, but who - it is simply about knowing Him (Philippians 3:10). God answered our plea and began to show us more and more about his character and nature that we had not yet known (Jeremiah 33:3). He revealed so much to us, but one of the most life-changing attributes He showed us in His word was how sovereign He is in all things, including salvation (see this post). Our view of God was completely turned upside down as we were convinced through the reading of His word that we had been worshipping a god who was omniscient and omnibenevolent, but not sovereign in all things. We finally understood it was God who drew us and gave us the gifts of repentance and faith in Christ. There was and is nothing about us or our lives deserving of His gift of Christ dying in our place and drawing us to Himself through the Gospel.

That was the beginning of what turned into a voracious appetite Dave had for studying scripture and theology. He started staying up into the wee hours of the morning, digging through scripture, cross-referencing, reading commentaries and systematic theologies, and loving every minute of it. Not only was he learning and loving it, but he was using his gift of teaching to instruct me and others in what he was learning.Through church and small group Bible studies, it became clear that He had a gift for teaching the word to others.

Close friends kept asking him when he was going to go to seminary. His answer was always the same. He would humbly thank them, but insist that he didn’t want to be a pastor; he just wanted to learn the word…(oh and by the way, teach it).It was during that time that I began to pray about him going into the ministry. I wasn’t sure how or when, but it seemed quite likely that was where he was headed, but I needed confirmation from the Lord.

Within a few months, Dave was forced to answer the question, “Are you being called to go into full-time vocational ministry? And if so, what’s holding you back?” Thanks to some faithful brothers in Christ, who were willing to hold his feet to the fire and hold him accountable, he was forced to truly pray and seek wisdom for the question he had been running from. At this same time, Dave was studying about the purpose and function of the local church and God clearly showed him through scripture the importance and necessity of pastors “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:12-13). The answer, of course, was a resounding, “yes.” In fact, he found that the desire and meditations of his own heart were best said by C.H. Spurgeon in an excerpt addressing one’s call to ministry: “This desire should be one which continues with us, a passion which bears the test of trial, a longing from which it is quite impossible for us to escape, though we may have tried to do so; a desire, in fact, which grows more intense by the lapse of years, until it becomes a yearning, a pining, a famishing to proclaim the Word.”

Though the first question was easy to answer, the second was a bit more painful. As we looked at what was holding us back from leaving everything we knew, uprooting our family, and moving halfway across the country, the only thing we could come up with was fear and worry….basically sin…the sin of not trusting God to provide for our every need. Well, God has something to say about that too.

²⁵ "Therefore I tell you ,do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?²⁸And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:25-33

So the real question was, “do we believe God or not?” This was a crisis of belief. We either believe God and obey…or we don’t. As Henry Blackaby says in Experiencing God about this kind of God-sized step, “You cannot stay where you are and go with God.” That is what was happening to us and we knew the next step was critical. We could either ignore all this and go on with our lives as if nothing happened, or Dave could apply to seminary. Dave’s acceptance to The Master’s Seminary in southern California was only the first of a series of providential circumstances that have confirmed the Lord’s blessing in this next chapter or our lives. California, here we come!

Commit your way to the Lord

Trust in Him and He will act. Psalm 37:5

Stay tuned for part 2.