Some Things I'm Learning... or Trying to Learn

As I've shared earlier this year, 2012 is a year in which I'm patiently waiting on God.  It's been a struggle to wait and pray.  I go back and forth by chastising myself for being impatient or chastising myself for being lazy.  I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm trying to avoid any self-induced pressure at least throughout 2012.

In the midst of the waiting, then here are three things I'm learning trying to learn.

1) To Stay Awake This is motivated by my reading of this book, quoted here.  I have a yellow post-it note stuck on my computer monitor that reminds me to "stay awake."  I'm trying, quite unsuccessfully I might add, to bring my thoughts back to the presence of God throughout my day.  While I'm not very consistent in that discipline, I am growing in another disciple; loving difficult people.  

2) Living out the Love of Jesus With my job as an adjustor for nonstandard (high risk) auto insurance, I work with some very difficult customers.  When I find myself wanting to reach through the phone line and strangle them, I've instead been picking up another post-it note and reading this quote from Mother Teresa, "Dearest Lord, may I seen you today and everyday... though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you and say, 'Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.'"

As soon as I read that quote, my heart rate slows, my voice softens and my desire to speak my mind diminishes.  I actually sense the patient love of Jesus flow through my being.  I've been praying for months for opportunities to share the love of Jesus at my workplace; a difficult thing to do in the sterile, cubicle-ed corporate environment in which serious talk is frowned upon.  While I'm still not sure how to live out a Kingdom life among my coworkers (amongst times I'm swearing under my breath), I've been growing in my patience and love toward our difficult customer base.


3) To Stop Seeking Significance through my Work  This is a very timely and a very difficult lesson.  The difficult part of this lesson is that for or a couple months, it seemed like my 2012 waiting period was going to end halfway through the year as I was a top candidate for a great job at a local university.  This position was a perfect match for my skill set and I thought I'd finally made the difficult entrance into higher education.  Toward the end of the drawn-out hiring process, however I ended up finding myself on the wrong end of some unethical nepotism.  While I'd impressed my potential dean, my potential direct boss decided to hire a friend who didn't even meet the minimum requirements of the position.  I'm still sick to my stomach about the missed opportunity.

The timely part of this lesson is that I'm struggling at my insurance job.  Our reviews, pay raises, bonuses, etc. are based upon a numerical review system.  While I'm above average in some areas, I'm slightly below average in others (though my scores in my areas of struggle appear to be about average compared to the other people hired at the same time as myself).  I'm a part of a 7 person team, however that usually scores among the top of our the group of about 50 teams.  This means my supervisor is not too keen upon my average new-hire scores bringing down the rest of the team.  As a result, I'm on a minor probation period; it's nothing serious as I think it's just to wake me up.  It is however, extremely demeaning.  Very demeaning.  It just seems that I'm gifted in such a way that I've got more to offer the world than being written up by my supervisor for failing to ask the first car of a three car pile-up whether there was any pre-existing damage on the back car of the pile-up.  But that's where I'm at.

Which leads to the fourth thing I'm learning...

4) To Turn Complaints into Thanksgiving  I'll admit it, at times I can be a serious whiner.  The other day, when venting frustration over a pointless procedure to my supervisor (who was patiently listening), I stopped and observed, "it's pointless, but I am getting paid."  Whenever a complaint slips out of my mouth, I try to immediately follow it up with a thanksgiving.  Sometimes it's a stretch but usually there is a bright side to the frustration.  Either way, I'm working to build in myself a good habit.  I've unsuccessfully tried to simply eliminate the habit of complaining.  This approach however, is at least helping to redeem a bad habit and cultivate something positive in myself.  

There it is - a blog post about one month in the making.  I'm not sure when I'll write again, though I am working on some other articles for another blog myself and some friends are about to launch.

Stay tuned.... Or at least don't unsubscribe to me.

My Prayers for 2012

Now that I've pretty much recovered from a season of loss and stress, I've now entered into a season of praying, waiting and preparation. In fact, my good friend Joe Kumor even told me in a message the other day that he was excited to see the next adventure God had for me.

I recently read a book by Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker, that talked about praying circles around important people and our future. In response to that book, the three circles I've made for this year are: My family/ adoption, justice/peace and teaching/ preaching. While I was already thinking and praying about those things, this book helped me focus my efforts. Here is a bit of info on where I am now with each circle and where I hope to be by the end of 2012.

Family / Adoption I've made more an effort lately to be praying for my wife and my son. I'm also praying about where to begin our next adoption process. Dawson basically fell into our lap, so I'm guessing the next child will take some effort on our part. I have a list of some agencies we can look into, I just need to actually do it. I'm also encouraged by the fact that my employer, Farmers, has a $4,000 adoption credit.

Preaching / Teaching teaching and preaching the scriptures is a gift that God has given to me. Not being in a regular pastoral role, however means I'm not in a regular rhythm of using those gifts, but I'm working into a new rhythm. I will be preaching at IC Gardner every six weeks or so and will be starting a discipleship group for new Christians.
But how will this move ahead in the future? I've been thinking for a couple of years that I'd love to start a ministry that educates people on Jesus' nonviolent teachings and example. I've been thinking lately that it would be great to teach some college level ethics classes. So it might be time for me to pursue some sort of doctoral degree. Yesterday morning, a life-long mentor of mine, Randy Beckum, gave me some great ideas for a doctoral program.

Peace / Justice Clearly, I have a passion to help make this nation slightly less war-hungry (at least among Christians) and slightly more just. Randy Beckum also told me that my alma matter, MidAmerica Nazarene University is starting a Center for Social Justice. I'd love to work for something like that. The educational ministry mentioned above would be a part of living out this passion as would some teaching opportunities at another initiative of MNU.
In the present, however, I'm continuing to read war history and nonviolent Christian teachings and sharing those on my blog. I'm also volunteering, and trying to recruit more volunteers, for the Urban Scholastic Center in Kansas City, KS. I'll write more on that later.

So those are my "prayer circles" for 2012. If you'd like to occasionally join me in those prayers, I'd greatly appreciate it.

A Car Wreck

I'm now working as an auto insurance adjuster. I do all of my work from the office,so if there are any injuries resulting from the accident, the claim automatically gets reassigned to an adjuster in the field. There are some serious injuries, obviously, but even if there is the possibility of a minor injury, the claim still gets sent to a field adjuster. If a person has just a small pain in their neck, there still needs to be an investigation because while that pain could end up going away in a day it could also turn into a chronic neck injury. So no matter the extent of the injury, an investigation is always required. We also keep a record of where each person is sitting in the vehicle. A curious reality of car accidents is that one person may walk away from an accident relatively unscathed while another person sitting in different part of the vehicle could suffer a serious injury. As long as the injuries and passengers are put in the file at the time the claim is filed, future treatments may be covered by the insurance company. Another curious thing about injuries is that they may not present themselves until months after the accident.

A few days ago, I had the privilege of having breakfast with one of my college mentors, Dr. Sondra Cave. In addition to being a mentor, she was also my "mom" while I was in college; letting me cry in her office after Erin dumped me (thankfully she eventually wised up) and later serving as Erin's wedding coordinator. Despite all she had done for our university and even despite being named alumnus of the year, a year ago Sondra was laid off from our alma matter. To put it mildly, it was a painful experience for her and she's still working through some of the effects of that betrayal. On the positive side, however her consulting business has taken off now that she's been forced to market her incredible gifts.

That morning, Sondra and I swapped stories about the hellish despair we've both gone through lately. I told Sondra some of the emotional breakdowns my short stint in the Kansas City Missouri School District had caused me, some of which I'm still not comfortable sharing on this blog. We also talked about how we've both come a long way in our recovery Physically, I'm back to normal but I'm pretty sure I'm not yet fully recovered emotionally.

While I've been given some great opportunities to use some of my teaching and leadership gifts withing Indian Creek Gardner, I'm intentionally holding back somewhat; being hesitant to commit to some things that I know I could do and working to protect my time with my family and my time to myself. I've also had some discussions about potential full-time ministry opportunities but I'm very hesitant about those, too. Right now, it's wonderful to work my 40 hours, leaving the job at the office and to come home to a night of playing with Dawson, jogging on the treadmill, reading a book or working on a sermon for Indian Creek.

I know this place I'm in isn't long term but it's a really nice place to be; a fact that actually scares me. I'm scared of being complacent and missing something great God may have for me because I'm too busy enjoying my comfort to sense his nudge. Which makes that conversation with Sondra so timely.

Sondra expressed my 15 weeks of Teach for America/ KCMSD as a car crash; a short but intense experience that launched with huge hopes and dreams before violently crashing into a reality of guilt and shattered dreams. The grief and guilt of which is compounded by the grief of Trinity Family Gardner ending the day before I was accepted into TFA. The thing about a car crash, Sondra reminded me, is that it may take months for all the injuries to appear and even years for those injuries to recover.

So just take it slow, she advised, allow yourself time to recover and trust that God won't let you fall asleep in complacency.