Moving into a new phase of life and service...

Krissa Lox

Active Member
After much prayer and deliberation, I am finally making the decision to retire from internet ministry in order to switch focus to contributing to more pressing and understaffed areas of local ministry instead. For a lot of spiritual and practical reasons that probably no one really needs to read a wall of text about to detail it all here, but probably also not really surprising as my litany of complaints about various things over the last couple years show this as a consistent direction the Lord has been moving in my life, just that I have not always been given the perspective of being able to see or appreciate it.

I'll still be here, maybe even more than before as the local community where God currently has me is not really in a place that is likely to satisfy my spiritual, intellectual, fellowship, or recreational needs, but things will be different as I'll be here more when I need a break from ministry work rather than as an extension of it.

To that end, I don't know if I'll continue doing Verse of the Day or not. If God specifically gives me something then I'll post it, but for the most part these days my spiritual engagement centers around things pertinent to supporting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and trying to increase the technological capabilities of broken rural communities, which are pretty heavy and complex topics currently going through intensely emotional experiences of feeling devastation, anxiety, futility, betrayal, and despair, that I don't think making public posts about would really serve anyone here.
 
Glad to hear you have a new sense of direction and guidance. Glad to hear you're pursuing it. Good luck out there!
 
Glad to hear you have a new sense of direction and guidance. Glad to hear you're pursuing it. Good luck out there!

Thanks! It's not been an easy or comfortable thing to contemplate, and will probably be even less so to faithfully move forward in doing, but the challenge is probably not so much a spiritual one but more of fighting the temptations and social norms of living in a wealthy nation/culture that prefers to orient around way-of-life approaches to how we invest our time, talents, and treasure, rather than the mission-oriented focus that the Bible asks of us.

"Comfortable ruts" and over-committing our futures to worldly causes before knowing what God's long-term plans for us will be are pretty much what constitutes the prevailing idea of "adult responsibility" that's constantly being drilled into us these days, not being willing to forsake everything to allow yourself to be moved to wherever the Lord leads. But as 2 Timothy instructs us to not entangle ourselves with the affairs of this life so that we can better serve wherever and whenever the Kingdom needs, that includes entanglements of comfort, identity, and ego, too.

Not to be all preachy about stuff (and I know there can be temptations in the other direction too, to claim "will of God" in order to avoid legitimate responsibility and commitment). Just still processing some personal feelings here as there tends to be some lag time between making the decision and going through the physical labor of moving on to someplace new before you're actually psychologically ready to move, but I trust that God includes this in His plans as well, plus I am cognizant that it's somewhat of a first-world problem to have had the luxury of having acquired a comfortable place for a time to be disgruntled about leaving it to serve much more pressing, but also much less comfortable, needs.

Or maybe it's just that I'm not as young as I used to be, to have the same excitement I once did for leaving everything behind to embark on new adventures, but then I suppose there are some tasks that require the sobriety and patience of maturity more than the exuberance of youth, which is probably the most applicable case for both the areas of dealing with the gravity of supporting persons recovering from Middle Eastern wars, and figuring out ways to providing meaningful tech services to the Dukes of Hazzard so that Bo and Luke don't so easily get co-opted into nefarious schemes to assault the government just because some random weirdo on the internet manages to convince them that Boss Hogg is secretly part of some sophisticated federal plot to sell out the country to Satanic reptile space aliens. Obviously, the first endeavor feels a good deal more noble than the second, but both are probably equally likely to lead to seriously damaging consequences if not adequately addressed.

So overall I am mentally at peace and optimistic that this is the right way to go and that the Lord will both guide and provide, but emotionally I'm not really so cool with it yet. Though in fairness, maybe there's only so much peace and optimism that can be reasonably expected in having to go try to coax grown adults into letting go of irrational fears of Satanic reptile space aliens to help equip them to pursue more constructive ways of dealing with civic discontent instead.
 
So overall I am mentally at peace and optimistic that this is the right way to go and that the Lord will both guide and provide, but emotionally I'm not really so cool with it yet. Though in fairness, maybe there's only so much peace and optimism that can be reasonably expected in having to go try to coax grown adults into letting go of irrational fears of Satanic reptile space aliens to help equip them to pursue more constructive ways of dealing with civic discontent instead.
I wish you tremendous success and will be praying for the same. :)

In a world seemingly gone mad, we can not hope to convince others of the truth of God's Word BUT we can share the Word and let the Holy Spirit convict those who listen of its truth. I usually think of that principle in terms of people coming to a saving faith in Christ, but it occurs to me that the same principle applies whenever the Word is faithfully taught and shared.

Put another way, the task ahead of you looks impossible because it IS impossible by human efforts. But God, in His unfathomable plans (and humor), chooses to work through people sharing His Word and living it out in front of others. God is faithful to His Word and He sees His will accomplished. What a marvel that He allows us to participate in the work!
 
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