My own Journey

You never know where the journey will lead. Twenty-nine years ago I thought I had irretrievably lost my way on my own journey. I was on the edge of flunking out of college, I had let my parents down, I had let down my friends, I had let down myself, and I had let God down. I had spent a semester partying constantly and was doing my best to tune out God's voice. I knew I had a call to ministry but I was equally clear that I didn't want to hear that any longer, so I did what I thought I had to do to drown out that voice, I self-medicated as much as possible.

As exams approached, I knew that I had to do better on one exam than I had any right to expect in order to stay in school. I remember Dec. 18 quite well because I had reached the point where I had studied harder than ever in my life and the chances of it being enough were nil. I went back to my dorm room where I had a shotgun a friend had loaned me to go squirrel hunting with (it was a very different time then but I still think you weren't allowed to have a shotgun in your dorm room) and stuck the barrel of the gun in my mouth with every intention of killing myself when someone came into my room and I quickly put the gun down. I never got a chance to be alone to finish the job that night or the next couple of days. As expected, I came up a bit short and was done with my Sewanee career.

Clearly my life didn't get better that day and it would be another 17 years before I would be willing to hear and answer the call to ministry. There was a lot of pain, a lot of running, and a lot of bargaining with God in between, but there was also a great deal of joy, laughter, love and life that happened in there that I am glad to have experienced. I am fortunate that God sent someone into that room that night to save me from giving up at a time when it all looked bleak.

Sometimes the journey is hard because of us and our failures and shortcomings, but I can say today that God was faithful, more faithful than I could ever have known or expected, more faithful than I ever deserve, but that is who He is.

After the sin of the golden calf in Exodus, when Moses has broken the tablets on which the Commandments are written, he goes back up the mountain to intercede for the people and God renews the covenant. Like Adam and Eve, the terms were obedience or death and they had already broken the first commandment and rejected Him, and yet He renewed the covenant with them. In that moment Moses asked to see the Lord. At that time, the name of the Lord was simply known as "I AM." On this day, Moses got an expanded understanding of his God, The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Exodus 34.5-7)

I understand that reality of a merciful God who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness, I have experienced it and I daily walk in that reality only because He kept me from my own will in 1980. For that I am deeply humbled and truly thankful and prepared to walk with Him wherever He leads me today.