I lived the first twenty years of my life in the same community in Northeast Missouri. We had around 700 people in our little town. Both sets of my grandparents were within a twenty minute drive. Aunts and uncles and cousins all around me. Though I suffered through my own fair share of instability, at the end of the day I was rooted in the community. (For all the good and all the bad which comes with that).
When I got married my wife and I moved and I took a position as a youth pastor. Our move wasn’t too far, though. The church where I was a youth pastor was only about 15 minutes from my childhood home. It was pretty much the same community. A few new faces but really what was happening is that those deep roots were just extending into another community.
I surrendered to the ministry in that little church where I was a youth pastor. We weren’t quite sure what the future would hold but we knew that our next step was seminary. This mean uprooting. My wife and our newborn son moved eight hours away to Louisville, KY. We didn’t know many people at all but we knew this is where we needed to be.
My wife did what great wives like her do; she started putting down new roots. These weren’t able to get too incredibly deep, though, because within 6 months we moved to a new community. It was a painful uprooting. We knew we were supposed to be in Louisville, but our next move wasn’t so certain. It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t what we envisioned. It ripped us out of the seminary community where we had hoped to grow and flourish and put us back into the furnace.
We felt a bit like our backyard looks right now. When we moved into our present home the homeowner filled in a pool and resodded the backyard. But things didn’t really set well and so what you’ve got are a bunch of bare spots where the sod didn’t really catch hold. We were still raw from our last move. The tiny roots that we had started to set down were ripped right out and we were expected to do it all over again.
And we did. In time. We developed such great friends and relationships in Jasper, Indiana. At some point I’m going to write about the Lord’s faithfulness to us during this season. But I’ll summarize here and say that I believe I sinned against my wife in moving us away from Louisville and to Indiana. It might have been the right decision in the long run—God certainly redeems and uses even our desperate and silly choices—but the way we got there was sinful on my part.
For the first couple of years it was a wilderness. Not because of the people at Jasper. They were great. God was using us. Things were going well but I was dead inside. Even with the joyous birth of our daughter, those first couple of years were difficult for me emotionally (I’d be happy to speak in a ‘we’ but I don’t want to speak for my wife here). It felt like a wilderness. But God was able to set a table even in the wilderness and Jasper became home.
Roots started to grow deeper. Friendships blossomed. We finally considered Jasper our home. We were content. We were happily doing ministry, seeing our small group flourish and getting to pastor alongside a great friend. We had tough times, sure. We had dark days, just like anyone else. But we were starting to establish some roots. Home felt like home. Friends felt like family.
Then the wind blew again. A violent storm which couldn’t be ignored. I started feeling like I was hitting a ceiling in Jasper. I knew that God was calling me to be a lead pastor. My wife affirmed this—though both of us with great trepidation. The elders of our church affirmed it as well. We put out resumes for awhile. Nothing. Not many churches wanted to take a chance on a thirty year old pastor.
We had settled into the idea of just staying at Jasper. We wanted to stay there, anyways. I tried to pretend like that ache inside of me wasn’t too terribly strong and that we could make it work. And just as soon as we decided that we’d start pushing those roots down a little further, a church finally called.
It was time to uproot again.
There were many tears shed as we left. We were excited about our new opportunity and this new mission field God had placed us into. But we also knew what lay ahead of us. We had to put down roots again. The slow and plodding process of making a new place your home.
In part this is an easier process for a senior pastor. I am immediately known by several people. Folks want to get to know me. They want us to plant roots and they want them to go deep quickly. But let’s be honest. Starting in a new church is a bit like a rebound relationship. That church usually has wounds from the previous pastor who just left and had to break their heart and the new pastor has wounds from the church he just had to uproot from. And so it takes time. Roots don’t grow deep too quickly.
If you are still with me, I’ve just now arrived at my point. I feel like that tree pictured at the top, right now. That’s not to say anything about the great folks at Marionville. I have relationships which are deepening. We are planting those roots. But there are some Monday mornings when I just flat out hurt. I feel disillusioned. I feel rootless. And if I’m being honest, I kind of am. I’ve come a long ways from that little community of 700 people where everybody knows your name. Moving into a new community as an introverted pastor isn’t an easy task. My roots will tend to grow deeper and expand out longer but it takes them a bit longer to establish. While I’m waiting it’s tough.
But I read something today by Lauren Chandler which really ministered to my soul:
God has graciously used seasons in the desert, in chains, in folly, and in the storm to expose the weaknesses of my anchor impostors. He unties the frail rope from the measly brick and replaces it with His hesed chain tied to the anchor of Yahweh, the Great “I am,” the One who will never fail. –Chandler, Lauren. Steadfast Love: The Response of God to the Cries of Our Heart (Kindle Locations 495-496). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Those roots that I’m almost idolatrously longing for are anchor impostors. They won’t hold. I want and need deep relationships with people. I’m fine if the Lord doesn’t ever uproot us again—until he pulls us out of the ground somewhere when the trumpet sounds. But I want to be realistic in the fact that when I became a disciple of Christ I gave him a blank check. I didn’t do that at my ordination. I didn’t do that when I said “yes” to pastoring this church. I did that when I bowed a knee in repentance and faith and asked Jesus if I could follow Him wherever He goes.
Some day I feel a bit like that tree. Gracious people in our community help my wife and I establish roots. We’ll get there. I’ll feel less and less like that tree. But my ultimate hope is found in the immovable anchor of Christ. He cannot be uprooted. And I think the Lord was communicating this to my wife and I even before we set foot in Southwest, Missouri. As we choked down our fears, and endured the pain of uprooting, and packed up our stuff for this new journey a song kept ministering to my sweet wife. That song was Kari Jobe’s “I Am Not Alone”. The lines, “I am not alone, I am not alone, You will go before me, You will never leave me” were precious to us in that season.
Those lyrics, I’m convinced, were precious for a reason. Christ isn’t roots we establish. He’s an anchor. And He has tied me to Himself. The immovable anchor. This is stronger than any roots I could ever establish. Roots are good—but they aren’t ultimate. Christ is. Roots aren’t eternal. But He is. And so, I’ve been given by Christ what is needed to do the plodding work of pastoring and go about lovingly and unashamedly trying to establish deep roots all the while knowing that Christ is holding a blank check in his hand.
The anchor always holds.
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