I recently made my annual trip to Colorado for Base Camp Gathering, a men’s weekend with The Noble Heart ministries, at Bear Trap Ranch. It’s my opportunity to reconnect, resupply, and recalibrate. I’m often one of the presenters, but not this year … and, to my surprise, I was satisfied with that. Had they asked, I would’ve talked about trusting God through life transitions, but it would’ve been premature. My thoughts are still too jumbled to say out loud.
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Cyndi and I are in the middle of two life transitions. One involves ministry, which I initiated; the other concerns my profession, which I didn’t.
The ministry transition: August 30 was my last Sunday teaching weekly adult Bible study class, something that I’ve done consistently for thirty years. I felt clear direction from God that it was time to hand it over to someone else. But knowing something is the right thing to do doesn’t make it easy. Stepping away from weekly reaching is a fundamental change for me – in my personal identity, and in what I perceive to be my value as a man.
Knowing how much I love teaching, my class asked what I planned to do next. I said, “I don’t know, yet. In fact, Cyndi and I seldom know what’s next.”
In truth, I don’t expect to stop teaching altogether. I’ve already substituted twice, and I expect to be doing more. We’ll have to wait and see where God takes this.
The other transition is my career. The company I’ve worked for as an engineering consultant is selling all its assets; my job will disappear in a month or so. This sort of thing has happened to me many times, the result of working in an up-and-down cyclical industry, but it feels different this time. Knowing the industry, and my age, it’s could be the end of my professional career. Maybe not – I intend to keep looking for opportunities – but probably.
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The best part about transition and change is that Cyndi and I love each other and trust each other, and we’re similar in the things we like to do. We’ve learned to adapt quickly to change and disruption. We talk often about a lyric from the song by High Dive Heart, titled Vintage: “And what if it all goes to hell? At least you won’t be by yourself.”
It’s good to have each other.
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One morning while I was I in the Colorado mountains, I was reading from the Old Testament Bible book, Haggai. Twice in the first chapter he told the people, “give careful thought to your ways.” They had been slack in their living, taking success for granted, and allowing the fruit of their lives to go to waste. He wanted them to pay more attention.
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Later I read from a different Bible book, Zechariah, about his dream, when he saw a man coming toward him with a tape measure in his hand. In the margin, I had written … “Yikes!”
Because I’m afraid of being measured and evaluated.
I’m not afraid of retirement, or uncertainty, or wide-open freedom, but I am afraid that I won’t measure up. Afraid that I’ll have to look Cyndi in the eyes and admit that all those years I’ve been working and earning a comfortable income as a consultant … I should have done it differently.
To be honest, I am not afraid of measuring up to God’s standards. I am deeply rooted in His love and grace and that doesn’t scare me.
What scares me is measuring up to Cyndi’s expectations. And yet I know, from 41 years of experience, that this is a foolish fear.
And yet, there it is.
Fears are seldom based on logic.
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Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar, told a story about what happened when the British introduced golf to India in the 1820s. “Monkeys were intrigued by the little white balls and would swoop down onto the fairways, picking them up and carrying them off. … They added a new rule to the game – “Play the ball where the monkey drops it.” (from Creativity, Inc.)
Isn’t that the answer to all life change – play the ball where it lands? Take the changes as they come?
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One thing I’ve finally learned during the past few years is that transitions are not new and not rare. In fact, Jesus himself was perpetually in transition. He was always in motion, leading his disciples from town to town. His first words were “Follow me,” and his final words were, “Go into all the world.”
What matters most is not status but trajectory. Not who I was, but where I’m going. Not what I did, but what’s next.
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Cyndi and I have become more comfortable with uncertainty as we get older—probably because we trust each other more but even more because we trust God’s character. And because we trust God, we trust our own intuition about decisions. We’re more comfortable saying, “Let’s do this and see what happens” because God has been faithful for so long. (from Practicing Faith, by Berry Simpson)
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God rarely gives us all the information we want before we have to make decisions. Abraham obeyed God even though “he did not know where he was going.” God often only gives us clarity about one step at a time.
We want a peek into what’s next. We tell ourselves that if we knew the future, we would put that knowledge to good use, but how likely is that?
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Moments of change and transition should never be ignored. Most of the time, our lives are too crowded and rushed to hear from God; it’s during intervals of upheaval when our heart is softest. We should think of transitions as gifts, opportunities to lean forward into the future and open our hearts to a fresh new word from God. Don’t waste them.
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Cyndi once reminded me that the Kingdom of God is about taking risks … risks that scare you. She told me that about fifteen years ago, when we transitioned from teaching our own peers, our own age group, to teaching married couples younger than our own kids. We weren’t sure it would work. We weren’t sure we could pull it off.
We left our cozy teaching ministry nest and moved into new and scary territory. She wanted to share that message with the friends we left behind, but the transition was so fast we never had the opportunity to say all we wanted. Change is good; it’s exciting and invigorating and inspiring, but it carries the risk of separation from close friends who have been our closest brothers and sisters. Change is inevitable if we follow God, but new things are scary.
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“If you sign up for God’s hike, don’t bother to pack the tent. Just when you think you’re ready to make camp, God will wave you on to some new site.” (Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits)
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How many times have you heard or said, “I only wish things could return to normal.”
As if there was such a time.
(I wrote this in 2015, not 2020)
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Leonard Sweet wrote, “We should prize chaos more than order. Only chaos brings forth new ideas, new experiences, and new energies, because only chaos is open and receiving, ready for change.” (What Matters Most)
One of my favorite chapters from the Bible is Mark 5, and it tells about a series of interruptions woven together that made up Jesus’ day. Reading that chapter is a reminder that if it weren’t for interruptions we wouldn’t know much about Jesus actual ministry with people. The gospel writers didn’t write about day-to-day teaching, but wrote about the chaos that followed Jesus everywhere he went.
It has become a favorite phrase of mine, that “change adds energy,” and I rattle it off as if I’ve always known the truth of it, but it’s taken most of my life to learn to stop resisting sudden changes to my perfect plans.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t wallow in chaos. I don’t seek messes and I certainly don’t plan my life that way. In fact, I’m always trying to sort through the chaos and find meaning, beat down the mess to find the true story, untangle the situations to locate the lesson that will help us all find our way through.
It is in those moments of change, the transitions, the chaos, when the danger of making a mistake is the greatest, that we depend, finally, on God. During normal times, whatever that really means, there is no future. There is only more of the same old thing. The future hides in transition. Hopes dwells in the chaos. Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past; it loses the future.
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I read a story from Acts 24 that reminded me how transitions seldom work out as quickly or cleanly as we want. Most are harder, and most drag on longer that we hope.
The story is about a time when the Apostle Paul spent two years in prison because the governor was afraid to make a decision. Two years, gone, just like that.
Paul’s situation reminded me of another story. In 1994 I was laid off by my employer of fifteen years due to an industry downturn. It took two years before I was working again. Two years, gone, just like that. Unemployment was frustrating and embarrassing. It was hard to comprehend God’s purpose.
Sometimes, the transition doesn’t end right away. Maybe we need more training or conditioning; maybe the circumstances aren’t ready for us; maybe we just need to be grow up a little bit. It’s often hard to know the “why” of God’s timing.
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We were eating lunch at Texas Burger when Mark asked if I’d figured out how to squeeze in time to write since I’d taken on a new job. I said, “I’m not sure, yet. I decided if God had brought this job opportunity I had to relax and expect Him to help me work out the rest of my schedule.”
Apparently, I haven’t always been so loose with my plans, because Mark grinned at me and said, “Is this my friend Berry Simpson I’m talking to?”
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I understand that transitions are not something to simply live through, they’re the essence of life itself. If we don’t have unknowns ahead of us, if we don’t have to improvise our way through the key changes, what a boring life we would live. Where would the energy come from? Where would our joy come from?
Cyndi has reminded me that balance is only peaceful on the surface; underneath there’s constant movement. When Cyndi is balanced on one leg in Warrior III, she appears to be completely relaxed and peaceful, but if you look closely you can see the muscles in her feet firing right and left and the muscles in her legs hugging the bones and her ribs stretching and expanding. Balancing requires a lot of movement, but it is the movement itself that makes it all worthwhile. It is the constant adjustment and improvisation that makes our life peaceful.
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So I keep praying: “Help us through this current set of transitions and get us ready for the next round. Give us wisdom and courage to make bold and correct decisions; change our hearts to embrace whatever comes next; and teach us to trust you in all things.
“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
When Your Desires Are Thwarted
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