On April 14, a tornado hit the Oaklawn
area. Lighthouse became the headquarters
for relief in the aftermath. I spent the week helping there by visiting people,
cleaning up and praying for people. I
felt God was engaging my heart and emotions again for ministry. Angie and I led some nights of prayer and
worship there to encourage those who were giving so much and also those who had
lost so much.
During our last night of prayer and
worship at the church, as Angie was leading worship, I thought that maybe we
should go back to Lighthouse to help minister while we were waiting for God to
clearly call us. God has been moving so
powerfully in that church, and I thought maybe we could go back.
I came home that night and told Angie
that I wondered if God was calling us back to Lighthouse to help for a season. She listened to me and then said she didn’t
think so. She said that God had clearly
closed that door for us and she sensed that he wasn’t opening it back up. By now my frustration had reached its max. I
couldn’t see why I felt God was calling me back to Oaklawn and not Angie. I became very upset.
I now refer to this as the beginning
of our “Holy Fight”. We continued, and I
yelled in frustration to Angie, “WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO THEN?”
. . . Now this is what I didn’t know
at the time: For over a year, Angie had felt like God was calling us back into
church planting in some form, but she didn’t say anything to me about it because
I was so against it. She knew I could be a pastor and that I could lead a
church again, yet wondered if that was only her desire for me. Maybe her identity was in being a pastor’s
wife and not what God wanted. She didn’t
want to put any pressure on me that was not from the Lord. So, Angie was just waiting on the Lord for the
right timing. She also felt like I was trapped in my insecurity and knew I
wouldn’t listen to her if the timing was not right. She waited for her time to challenge me. . .
So, when I asked her, “What do you
think?” this was her chance. She started to say that she thought we should be
open to church planting, and that she could see me leading a church plant
again. This got me very angry and it
exposed my insecurity at its deepest level. I started to yell and argue that I couldn’t do
it. I am not a church planter, and I am
not a strong enough leader to do it. I
was too insecure and I had screwed up too many times. I yelled, “You don’t know me! You don’t know what I deal with.” Instead of backing down, (although inside
Angie was wondering if she should stop and prayed if God wanted her to keep
speaking truth)she kept at it. I really
felt like later the Lord rose up in her to challenge me that night.
We went to bed and the next morning we
processed a little more from the evening.
Earlier in the week, I felt like the Lord had asked me to do a 5 day
fast but didn’t start it. So on that Wed morning, I decided to do a 5 day
smoothie and juice fast. I needed to get
some space to hear clearly what the Lord was calling us to…. To be continued........
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