Updates All Around

Well, read the post below and you will see some of the struggles that Mandy and I have faced in moving to Knoxville. Some of these things have been resolved and some things still need to be settled, but we are confident that we are following God’s plan in making this move.

We have been incredibly blessed. God has clearly provided for us to follow his call, above and beyond any natural means. I feel a bit torn in making this statement because who am I to claim God’s blessing? Why should I think that God is blessing me above other people? I honestly struggle with guilt  because I feel like I am presuming on God’s grace when there are others that are much more deserving. The questions resounding in my mind is “Why did God bless me so much?”

A little background: this decision is the first time where Mandy and I are completely living on faith. We have had an easy life (with some struggles), but God has called us to a new life where we will literally dependent on his provision for “daily bread.” Living this way has caused us to ask God to provide for us in ways that we never have.

I realize of course that being alive at this moment is a work of God’s grace, and that the job I have had that has provided for my family is a work of God’s grace. In this situation, he is taking our family to a new level of faith that is exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Here is how he has provided:

1. In a very tough climate for getting into graduate school, I received a Graduate Teaching Assistantship at the University of Tennessee. I am honestly not a very attractive candidate. I am not published and have no teaching experience. I have no idea why they accepted me. Also, this offer was the only one that could possibly open doors for my family to move, so we feel this offer was all a part of God’s plan.

2. The 1999 Toyota Camry my wife was driving was not big enough for our family even now. Our daughter’s car seat caused us to have to remove the passenger seat headrest and we have no storage space. Well, someone called and told us that they believe in what we are doing and want to help. Next thing we know, I am turning over my truck and we are given a 2007 Nissan Quest, above and beyond what we need.

3. I will need to work part-time in order to provide for the family. I interviewed in the last couple of weeks and have a tutoring job paying a great rate and I will have the opportunity to continue working with teenagers.

4. We own a house in Montgomery. We tried to sell it for several months and received no serious offers, culminating in an open house that netted 0 visitors. On July 5, at 3:00 pm, Mandy put our house for rent on Craigslist. On July 5, at 6:30 pm, we had a deposit down and an agreement in place. We really like the family that will be living at our house and are excited about the opportunity to bless them.

In thinking about these many blessings and the weird guilt I feel associated with them, I have learned that it is not up to me to be in the business of determining where God dispenses his blessings. He has given me so much and my only response should be “Thank You.” I think that the guilt I feel is some remaining pride where I want at least some reason in my control that earns God blessing. I struggle with the idea that I have not done anything to deserve these gifts.

And that is the point.

I have not done anything. Any attempt to try and justify God’s blessing for me leads to me trying to earn God’s favor. God is not my servant; I am his. I should be thankful for whatever blessings he gives me and ask for those same blessings for others. The answer to the resounding question of “Why has God blessed me so much?” is “God has blessed me so much out of his goodness and for his glory.” All of the other reasons are his.

Please forgive me for a bit of a rambling post because I am still trying to wrap my head around all that God is doing. Please pray for us as we need to settle on a place to live by Saturday and begin planning our move. Pray also for us to continue to believe in God to meet our needs, especially when we seem to have no answers. God has promised and he continues to deliver on these promises.

P.S. I should also add that God has already begun to develop relationships with friends in the area. One family we met through a friend emailing Mandy after she wrote a blog post about our move and they have been scouting houses for us in the area. Another family will be moving there next summer to work at a church. I also found out this week that a friend (and fellow blogger) from high school lives in Knoxville now and has offered to be our official Tennessee Welcoming Committee (shout out to http://meetthebuttrams.wordpress.com).  God continues to confirm that this is where he wants us to go.

Plans

Honestly, we are in a pretty difficult spot right now. I have shared in previous posts how God has opened the door for us to go to Knoxville and for me to get my Ph.D. in English at the University of Tennessee.

I wish that I could say that the path was clear and that we were ready to move in about six weeks. But the plans are ever shifting. We own a house in Montgomery and have had very little interest from buyers (last weeks open house brought 0). I am going to take a drastic income hit and I have a family that needs to eat and needs somewhere to live.

When we got the offer from UT, we were confident that everything was going to work out in the end. Things have definitely not gone according to our plans. But both Mandy and I have never been more sure that we are doing the right thing in heading to Knoxville in August.

I have believed in God’s sovereign control over everything, and I have believed in his goodness. If I believe that God is in control and that he is good, then I have to believe that he will continue to provide for us as we take these next steps.

The question continually confronting me is: will I continue to trust God when I do not see how he is going to accomplish everything? God has reaffirmed, through so many different ways, that we are following his will. We have sought counsel and have listened to the advice of people we trust. All of them have said, “We support you. Go do what God is calling you to do. God will open the doors.” Mandy and I have been overwhelmed by the support of our families and friends.

This journey has taught me many things, but the most prevalent at this moment is the need for faith to trust God in all circumstances. Of course it is easy to trust God when we have plenty, or when the road is clearly mapped out in front of us. Trusting God is much harder when there are significant questions about how you are going to pay your bills.

And yet, God has given us a calm assurance in him. Now my assurance may be calm, but I have still struggled with anxiety about this whole process. I am reminded of Paul’s contentment in Philippians 4, when he said that the secret to living with contentment in all things is Christ, who gives me strength.

I will be honest and tell you that this process has taken it’s toll on me and my family. We are tremendously blessed, so I do not want to sound too dramatic, but this has been a difficult process. At the same time, we have grown in our faith tremendously during these last several months starting from when I mailed my first application to graduate school. God has given us the strength to keep moving and has provided amazing encouragement along the way.

And yet tonight, I feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest (a small elephant, but an elephant nonetheless). This journey is full of ups and downs, starts and stops, repeats, shuffles, and just plain fear. But we trust God because he has given us the faith to trust him. He has yet to prove unfaithful.

Mandy’s dad told us yesterday that one day we will look back on this time and see al that God was doing that we could not see. I look forward to that day and I hope that you receive some bit of encouragement from hearing our story.

Lack of Writing

I apologize for the lack of blogging. I have actually picked up a couple of assignments for River Region’s Journey. Montgomerians, check out this month’s and next month’s issues for a couple of articles.

As always, thanks for reading. Updates on moving and starting our new life soon.

Consider Sponsorship

Please visit http://www.indiachildsponsorship.org for information on a child sponsorship program that my church has developed with a children’s home in Northern India. I have visited this home before and was amazed at the incredible work they do in an extremely impoverished area.

These children come from difficult backgrounds and have very little opportunity to eat, much less to get a quality education. The children’s home provides school, lodging (if needed), and love to a generation of children left without much hope. Through this ministry, we have been able to partner with a clean water project in the mountains as well as network with other community development programs.

Please consider sponsoring these precious children.

 

You Should Read More Alexandre Dumas

Here is one of the reasons why we consider many of his works classics, especially “The Count of Monte Cristo”:

“The wind blew strongly, the boat made six or seven knots an hour, and they were rapidly reaching the end of their voyage. As they drew near the island seemed to lift from the sea, and the air was so clear that they could already distinguish the rocks heaped on one another, like cannon balls in an arsenal, with green bushes and trees growing in the crevices. As for the sailors, although they appeared perfectly tranquil yet it was evident that they were on the alert, and that they carefully watched the glassy surface over which they were sailing, and on which a few fishing-boats, with their white sails, were alone visible. They were within fifteen miles of Monte Cristo when the sun began to set behind Corsica, whose mountains appeared against the sky, showing their rugged peaks in bold relief; this mass of rock, like the giant Adamastor, rose dead ahead, a formidable barrier, and intercepting the light that gilded its massive peaks so that the voyagers were in shadow. Little by little the shadow rose higher and seemed to drive before it the last rays of the expiring day; at last the reflection rested on the summit of the mountain, where it paused an instant, like the fiery crest of a volcano, then gloom gradually covered the summit as it had covered the base, and the island now only appeared to be a gray mountain that grew continually darker; half an hour after, the night was quite dark.”

Enjoy for free at the iBook store or any local library.

Living in Process

Our offer from the University of Tennessee closed a long-developing chapter in our lives. At the same time, it started the next chapter. We are now in the process of selling our house, planning our move, and getting ready to start school again as well as additional jobs. So we went from one process to another process, one that will take the next 4-5 years. Then we will enter the “process” of applying for college jobs and making another move for our family.

In the midst of all these continual processes (and yes, I know I keep using that word) I struggle with wondering whether or not we will ever “arrive” at a stopping point. It seems that we are continually moving toward moving toward moving. While our culture has definitely become more mobile with less people actually staying in the same town for their entire lives, we seem to be living our lives in 4-5 year segments with the next location being settled shortly before we move.

Mandy and I talked about this struggle early into my first round of graduate school. We had fallen into the idea that we were merely “stopping” in Montgomery before we went to school. You can see the problem with that statement. There is life to be lived in the here and now, and we were missing it because we were unwilling to think of home as being any other place than our next location. We decided then that we would live life while we were here and invest into our community as much as we could before we moved on to another place.

While it is not an exact representation of what the Apostle was facing, we were moved into this kind of thinking by his words to the Philippian church in the Bible. He wrote, “For I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

We have always been well-fed, but the key to this passage is that Paul’s feeling of contentment is not based on his circumstances but on his dependence on God’s provision. No matter what is going on around him, even in those times of great need or great persecution, Paul trusted that God would continue to lead him and provide for him. This contentment leads to people being able to live in the moment because they want to live lives that please God where he has called them to live. We are continually learning this lesson and hope to live this truth wherever we move and for however long we will be there.

The alternative is never feeling content where we are and constantly living for the next move, job, church, child, etc. Then our contentment is not based on God, but on the circumstances. Circumstances are always changing, so we would never feel content. We should all try to base our contentment on the one thing above every circumstance, God.

Turn and Face the Change

In the fall of 2005, I really felt like I did not want to go to seminary any more. I had planned for a long time to go to seminary and become a pastor. This goal was my career choice for all of high school and college. I wanted to be a youth minister, then I felt I wanted to be a pastor. By the time fall 2005 came around, I had been out of college for a year and a half and lacked the desire to start moving toward seminary to pursue my career. This point was made clear to me by my wife who knowingly said, “If you do not have the desire to go to seminary, why are you still thinking of going?

Hmmm… what seems so obvious was outside my thoughts and Mandy, as she is known to do, perfectly articulated my internal struggles. I began to ask whether or not I really wanted to be a pastor and whether or not God had equipped me with that particular set of gifts. The answer to these questions was a resounding “No.” I began thinking and praying through where God may be leading me, and I remembered how much I missed the classroom, reading, and, yes, even writing papers. Thus the seed that had been planted in my undergraduate degree began to grow and I realized that I was called, and could be equipped, to teach and research English Literature as a career.

I started in Auburn Montgomery’s Master’s of Liberal Arts program in January of 2006 and God continued to let this seed grow. All this time, I was advancing in the company where I worked and enjoying the benefits of working at a great company with advancement. However, I always knew that I wanted to finish my Master’s and move on to get my Ph.D. My boss knew my calling as well and encouraged me to pursue it, all the while allowing me to continue to work and advance at my company.

I graduated in May 2010 and immediately began the process of applying to Ph.D. programs. I took GRE tests and filled out applications. Then came the grueling process of waiting… and waiting… and waiting. Everyone who has applied to anything has had to fight this same battle. I found myself constantly questioning whether I did enough to get into a program. The news from the industry, so to speak, was not promising.

States were cutting funding. Unprecedented amounts of applications were submitted. I was rejected outright by many of the schools, wait-listed by some, and accepted into some and wait-listed for funding. While I was thankful for the last group, for a husband and father of two, an unfunded offer is about as good as no offer. Then we received the letter.

I have been admitted to the University of Tennessee with a Teacher’s Assistant position starting this fall. I will write more later about the incredible journey of faith that this has been for my family. But God has been faithful the entire way through a series of intermediate faith steps. He has provided and he will continue to provide.

Here’s my best attempt to briefly sum up my thoughts: There is no real reason to expect that I should receive any offer at all in the current environment. The fact that I received the offer I did from a school of Tennessee’s caliber is nothing short of a miracle. God will continue to clear the path for us to go there, which includes selling our house. We walk in that confidence, not because Mandy and I are some kind of spiritual giants, but because God has been faithful in every step to this point and we are confident that he will keep his promises.

Many of you have encouraged us and prayed for us throughout this process. Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to post about our journey over the next several weeks.

Jeff

Great Connections

So many aspects of our lives are determined by our connections. We make efforts to cultivate key connections, and whole books have been written about how grow in your ability to make these connections.

Some people are born into connections by way of status or education. Prince William naturally has more connections than much of the world.

More often than not, at least for me, these connections happen naturally when God coordinates occurrences to give glimpses of the work he is doing.

This morning I Skyped with a friend that working in China and Southeast Asia with an organization on the forefront of significant cultural movements there. Technology enabled us to have this conversation (for free), and I hope to be able to post some of the video. Normally, I would probably not have a connection with this person, except for the fact that we grew up together in church and in school. This connection did not have to be built but was already there by virtue of the geography of our families and their choice in church and neighborhoods.

I hope to be able to share more of his strict through a number of outlets. The interview was for an upcoming article in Journey Magazine, a local Christian publication. This magazine is published but another natural connection: my youth minister from middle and high school.

Through these two connections, I have been given a great story to tell and a great platform to tell it. I would tell you all of the secrets of how to cultivate these connections, if I knew any. Both of these guys have known me since I was 12. I am a little in awe today about how God coordinates these connections.

Here’s a larger example. Many people know the story of Michael Oher as shown in the movie “The Blindside.” The movie is based on a book by Michael Lewis. What many people do not know is how Michael Lewis discovered this remarkable story that turned into a best-selling book and extremely popular movie. The story is an incredible tale of connections and willingness to help in itself, and it was born out through a natural connection.

Here’s a link to an interview where Michael Lewis describes the origins of this story.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/11/michael-lewis-explains-the-origins-of-the-blind-side.html

The connection: Michael Lewis is friends with Sean Tuohy and happened to come into town when the Tuohy’s were working with Michael to get through high school.

We can try and cultivate these connections but, for most of us, the connections we have to great stories may be right in front of us or a Skype call away.

My point is this: we never know where our connections might lead. Do you have any connections that have turned out to have greater significance than you thought?

Confessions of a Late-Wit

I like to think that I am fairly witty. Humor is a large part of my life. I appreciate sarcasm in most cases and look for opportunities to make witty comments in conversations and in writing.

I also have a problem. It manifested today as clear as I have ever seen it. I was thinking about a funny comment I could make on a blog I read recently… and by recently, I mean within the last month. So my witty comment was irrelevant because it generated so late. These are the struggles of a late-wit.

A late-wit could be considered “witty” but he lacks the timing to pull off the comment in a generally humorous way. He is not a “half-wit” as he possesses the mental capacity to come up with funny comments. He may in fact be a “nit-wit” (whatever that is).

In this case, the he is me. I wonder if anyone else has this problem. I think of great comebacks or additions laying in bed at night or, as is the case with this particular blog, a month later. I have a couple of theories as to why I am stuck here.

His name is Kevin... I should not know this, but I do.

1. I have a weird memory. And by weird, I mean completely random. I cannot seem to remember the most mundane tasks, yet I remember so many things that are completely irrelevant. I have limited memory of my childhood (not much before age 10), but I can tell you that Screech’s robot’s name is Kevin and I know every word to The Verve Pipes’ “The Freshman,” though I have not heard that song in at least 10 years. I can describe in perfect detail the day I met my wife, which is awesome, except for the fact that we had a class together one year prior to this meeting and I have no recollection of her being in that class. I remember specific events from junior high and high school that friends who were present cannot remember. I would think they were the weird ones, but I am the one out of 10 people that can remember these things.

2. I am running out of brain space. I have heard it said that the brain is like a sponge. Mine appears to be filled with years of family memories, friend memories, Atlanta Braves baseball, theology, philosophy, literature, music, television, and movies. My late-wittiness could be similar to a computer hard drive that is operating on limited space. Everything happens a little slower. Not dial up slower, just early stages of cable modem slower.

3. I tend to have these late-wit moments on longer runs or in quiet moments. Maybe my brain uses the exercise to squeeze out some latent witty thoughts when I am not taking in additional information. My wife has told me that I should journal any random thoughts because they could potentially turn into blogs or articles or even books. Of course, I do not carry a journal on a run and sometimes the thoughts are so fleeting that by the time I got to the journal they would be gone.

The result of late-wittiness is a complete lack of relevance. My comments would otherwise be wonderful examples of humor but their late arrival makes them out of place and trite.

By the way, has anyone seen this new movie “Inception”? I heard it was really good.

Please tell me that I am not alone in this battle.

The Greatest Writer Ever

We celebrate writers who develop their narratives over the course of the book. The best writers can begin a portion of the story, let’s say a character, and put that portion away for some time in order to develop the story. Then something happens later in the book and the character’s introduction in chapter 1 is given a true context. The character, or some thought about this character, will reemerge and bring the open circle to a close.

There is one writer who does this better than anyone else, and I think every other writer’s work is a representation of this writer’s original thought. For this statement to be true, this writer would have to exist long before any other writer or even those people who used oral tradition before writing. Even better, this writer operates through sovereign control and uses actual events to tell his great story.

I think you see where I am going here.

God is the greatest writer ever. Often, we become so reductionist about the Bible that we miss the larger story, the meta-narrative. We are too busy looking for life application in individual verses to see God’s big picture. The big picture is God and his glory as shown in what many have divided into four categories: creation, the fall, redemption, and reconciliation.

Here’s a great example. The Book of Jonah is a historical account of a prophet who flees God’s calling and boards a ship heading to another part of the known world. God sends a storm and a big fish (or whale) where Jonah spends three nights before he acknowledges God’s power and the whale (or fish) sends him toward where God called him the first time.

I believe these events actually happened. (Belief in God + text verification = previous sentence). This Old Testament account provides history and a great moral lesson to the readers on compassion and following God. It stands as a great and important part of the Old Testament canon.

However, that’s not the end of the story. Hundreds of years later, God himself comes to earth. The religious establishment of the day wanted to see signs because they were looking for reasons to discredit Jesus and doubt his claims. Here is his reply:

An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. – Matthew 12:38-40.

So the events of Jonah were not isolated incidents but are a part of God’s great story of redemption. The story of Jonah tells part of the story of Jesus. The sign of Jonah fulfilled in Jesus shows God’s immense artistic talent in developing his meta-narrative, which is all about him. We should celebrate the Bible as God’s great story as well as his guidance for life.