"I Am Calling You Up."

One morning when I recently got up, I just sat in bed sharing my thoughts with the Lord.

“I just cannot do this.”

Two of my kids were suffering the day before, as I tried to minister to them.  They know that l have been struggling as well, and because of that would choose to keep from dumping on me.  Time and again, I have had to express that it is more difficult to see them holding back and trying to carry it on their own than to share the burden.  And so is the journey that we are on…and thankfully, we keep finding each other and going deeper.

In those moments with God, I just expressed the deep pain and loneliness I felt to no longer have my best friend with me (not feeling alone, just missing Rachel).  God has sent some amazing people, but that day-to-day and moment-by-moment sharing of life and memories…gone.

And on top of that, there is that sense of confusion as to what is next.  I know that I am still called to ministry…in the sense of the calling to a full-time career.

“How does that work?  God, I don’t know exactly what to do anymore.”

Since we handed over Life Church in Portlaoise and Carlow, there has been this wandering.  And yet, it has been one day at a day, leaning into Him, and doors to minister and keep going and the money to do it…just has kept being there.  Sometimes I have wondered if I am done with ministry, just by default of the circumstances I find myself in, and then BAM…God encourages me to keep going, provides some kind of miracle, or opens a door.

As I lay in bed, struggling the past few days, where I had grown accustomed to this stage of ministry that we have been in as a family these past seven years and have learned to be content, in the moment and to love it, also knowing there was a future work that God has prepared us for…feeling extremely lost…at the end of a season and not knowing how to live what is next, not understanding what it is, and struggling to know how to lead my family.

After just laying in bed a few hours, getting that chance being a weekend, listening to the Word and scrolling some, I made my way downstairs, made a smoothy for me and the kids, some coffee, and sat down to read a book I just got on kindle a few days ago.

And there in my face, in God’s gentle loving consistent reaching out to me and my family, was the answer for us right now.

“I am calling you up.”

I understood that my relationship with God has changed over the past seven years.  It started on Holiday in France, three weeks before we resigned when I had a ten-day mental breakdown that changed my life.  Rachel read me those seven days from the book Hinds Feet in High Places.  The only two messages God spoke to me were, “Go back to the beginning,” and, “Don’t forfeit what I am doing by quitting.”

I started to read the Bible cover to cover.  In two years I did it three times.  Then I started listening with Rachel outside of reading and studying when we went to bed, often leaving it all night while we slept and into the morning.  During Covid, we took the time to study more pray in tongues more, and had our kids watch with us to at least one sermon a day.

And in the midst, ministry just seemed to happen.  Doors opened more to preach.  I found myself not preparing for sermons anymore.  I just jotted a few words to get me started and felt God told me to open my mouth and He would fill it with words as I had been spending much time with Him in the secret place (there is nothing more spiritual about preaching this way, and I prepared and had thorough notes for nearly thirteen years of preaching nearly every Sunday, and sometimes more when traveling to preach other places).

****That is one of the things I miss most about Rachel being gone.  We did so much of life together, our interests and hobbies.  Even when she painted, which I do not do, I sat often in the same room in the evenings practicing and writing music.  But we shared spiritually together throughout the day.  Jesus was our ultimate pursuit as a couple and family, and we kept that the centerpiece of our home and conversation, at meals and throughout the day.

So there was God’s answer to me.  I cannot say I fully understand, but as I read this book, and as the author described through the Old Testament and New Testament, that we can have as much of God as we want and that there are levels in God, I could hear the still small voice of God in my heart giving me the answer to all my struggles.

“I am calling you up.”

I do not know what that looks like in the months or years ahead.  I sometimes struggle to keep focus and know-how that looks even now.  But I believe this is not just a message for me.  It is what God is saying to the Church today around the world.

“I am calling you up.”

Lord, help me to put distractions aside and heed your call.  Help me to allow this to be my ultimate focus.  Help this touch those who read this as well.  Amen.