This Side of the Story

The actual title should be "God's Story in Me." I'm sitting in North Alabama typing this entry. Yes, for my whopping SECOND entry of the year, it's the first in our new home of Decatur. God called us down here to be a part of the ministry at Westmeade Baptist Church in the student ministry area. It has been quite an adjustment, no doubt! To go from something so familiar and comfortable full of loving friends and church family and arrive in a new place full of unfamiliar faces and unwritten stories has been a remarkable/scary/intimidating/ thing for us (my wife and I). Even after being here for about six or seven weeks, I'm still working on finding that comfortable/familiar feeling. But honestly, I really miss my friends and family in Florence, SC...and that's ok! I was a part of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Florence, SC for seven years, eight months, and four days! I do not see it possible to spend that amount of time in one location with a certain group of people and NOT miss them once you leave (except for prison...I don't think you would miss that place or group of people. Don't know, never been). I am proud to have been a part of EBC. I was beyond blessed to be considered a part of that family. I KNOW it was God's Plan for me to be a part of EBC for that period of time. 'How do you know it was God's plan?' you may ask, and I'm more than obliged to answer, so here's my answer on how I know it was God's Plan: David Wike. Here's another answer for the positive: Ed Self. Need more? How about Anita Shively, Pam Gaddy, Tory & Jess, King's Men, Wallace Fulmer, Phillip Kennedy, Andi Hill, Bill Watkins, Edwin Blue, Big Dawg, R&V Lee, Lotts, Big Papa & Nee-Nee, Scott Raynor, McCabes, BMB, Dean, Jimmy Norton, and dozens and dozens of more names. Dozens. And I intentionally saved the best for last: anyone and anything that ever had anything to do with CRASH!! THAT'S how I know it was God's plan! All these reasons God used to show me HIM. As a matter of fact, I'm listening to a David Wike sermon as I type this. God LIVES in the hearts and lives of these people and showed me more of who I need to be through them. He taught me who I was created to be by showing me the Him that's in these people that I lack in my walk. So, yeah, when you walk with the Lord through a garden that became home, you're going to miss it when you go to a new patch of grass and dirt, with the task before you to start a new garden. It's going to be hard and take lots of work. It's easy just to stay in the familiar, but when you know it's God, you can't stay. So when you know it's God (and God never has to give you a reason for what HE is up to) who is calling you to do something, how can you explain that to the people you're leaving? It hurts to try and tell someone you're leaving and can't explain why...not because you're holding out on them, but because you yourself don't know why. It's God's calling, who am I to reason or justify? Of course, throughout the course of human history this has held true, man tries to mentally contain the answer to the 'why' question. More times than not, man has been wrong. I've been told that we left to get closer to family because we have children now. My response to that is this: if we wanted to get closer to family because of our children, we would've left 4 years ago when Claire was born...and we would've been acting out of our desires, not God's calling. I've heard we left to go to a bigger church. False. Westmeade has fewer total members than EBC. Attendance is practically exactly the same (literally, within 10-20 people on average). And again, 'bigger' is a human term of measurement having nothing to do with God. Then there's the humanistic definition of value: he's getting paid a lot more. Seriously?!? Do we cheapen God's call enough to put a price tag on it?? Again, false. We came to Alabama because God called us to go to Alabama. It was hard. It still is. We were sad. We still have our sad times. And we miss our Florentines like crazy chocolate. But God is... And He called us to HIS service. Not for proximity to family. Not for church size. Not for budget numbers. Not for convenience. Not to appeal to our logic. And certainly not because He owes us an explanation. He called us...so here we are. He calls us everyday. To go. To be. To love. To live. There is no excuse. There is no reason up front. There is only the promise: God is. Isaiah 6:8-10 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Love you all...now let's go.