We Can Grow or We Can Lose Our Way

Late one evening, shortly before launching ExPastors.com, I met with Brad, a fellow expastor. We were only weeks away from kicking off the website and I wanted to meet with as many individuals as I could to learn from their experience and see how our site could help and connect with those on similar paths. Brad’s story was not much different than many others I’ve met.

He was broken. His experience in full-time ministry left a bad taste in his mouth. His words echoed so many others I’ve heard over the years, his face exhausted by a familiar pain, and his heart was full of hurt and a bit of shame. Yet, for the many times I’ve sat across a table from or shared a phone call with a hurt and broken expastor, there have been a few whose story drums to a different beat. They may have been hurting but they’ve found peace. They may have been hopeless but now they’ve found hope. And now they believe they’re finally living in the story God has written for them.

I’ve come to believe, through conversations like the one with Brad and through the work of Terry Walling, author and president of Leader BreakThru, that there are two significant truths that can happen to a pastor during a transition. “First, God does some of his most significant work shaping a leader’s life during a time of transition,” Walling says. And second, “even the most mature leaders and Christ-followers can get lost during a transition.”

“Even the most mature leaders and Christ-followers can get lost during a transition.”

These two truths have proven themselves time and again. We grow or we lose our way. And in either scenario it begs of us the question: On which of these paths will we find ourselves?

I say, where will we find ourselves rather than where do we find ourselves because I believe how we respond to this time of transition is a choice. It’s an action not a reaction. The late comedian, Groucho Marx, said it best when he said, “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

Yes, we cannot change what has happened along our journey but, like Marx said, yesterday is dead. We can stop kicking ourselves in the teeth. We can search for and find hope. We can experience peace and healing and restoration. We can believe that God is not done with us yet, believing He will do a significant work in our lives once again.