The Third Chair

It was incredibly difficult to post this blog, mostly because I didn’t know how to explain the situation in the clear and concise way I prefer (so I’d usually just wait for it all to be resolved).  However, it would be more beneficial for me and, hopefully for you as well, if I tried to explain before resolution takes place.  Please know that I’m in this Race 110% but God is requiring actual vulnerability on my part.  Much to my distaste.

It’s been two and a half months of wandering in the wilderness, so to speak.  I was wondering where God was, wondering why I had no drive to find him, wondering if I had made some kind of mistake and was somehow in the wrong place, wondering why there’s been no deep feeling of brokenness after some of what we’ve seen in the countries and ministries we’ve been serving.  I’ve been trying to understand the lack of real brokenness and the disinterest in it all that’s caught my attention.  You could say I’ve been living from spiritual breadcrumb to spiritual breadcrumb, following Jesus along this path that I could not comprehend and dependent on experiential worship to feel close to him.  Anxiety attacks had become a more present reality.  There just didn’t seem to be any relief from the endless grey emotion that had found its way into my every day.

Monday night (February 12^th) I came back from ministry exhausted.  I had put on a smile for the day and my cheeks hurt from the effort.  I sat down to dinner with my close friend, Hailey.  She knew something was off.  I wasn’t really trying to hide (anymore).  She came over to hug me and I just knew if I stayed in an open place I would break in front of everyone and I did not want that.  So, she took me to the roof.  Sitting with head in hands, I couldn’t find words.  Some pieces spilled out, scattered and uncertain.  Without warning, Hailey stood and walked to the other side of the roof, bringing back with her a chair.  A third chair.  Placing the third in front of our two, she explained.

“Okay.  God is sitting in that chair.  We both have questions for him.  We both need answers.  And, apparently, we both need to be broken.  So, speak.  That’s directed at you, not him.  Well… Him, too.”

There were definitely a lot of questions, many tears (on my end), and a few expletives.  The frustration, anger, inexplicable sadness, the desperation—it all flowed out.  We both ended up face-down in front of the third chair, doing what I imagine David did in the tent of the Ark of the Covenant or in the caves as he was fleeing from King Saul.  The “O, God.  O, God.  Why have you forsaken me?” was all too real.  The realization that he hadn’t was even more frustrating.

I wish I could say it was some sort of major, miracle breakthrough night, but, in reality, it wasn’t.  Instead, God said, “I have more for you.  Just not yet.  Sit and wait.”  Honestly, Jesus?  That’s just not what I want to hear.  But maybe that’s the point.  He’s breaking me of expectation.  I guess he’s also breaking my dependence on feeling.  What I want to hear and what he wants to tell me are two different things.  Hailey kind of joked about us both when we realized this was what God was saying.  She said, “I guess I’m a broken record and you aren’t even turned on.  Nobody really wants to listen to either.”

So, we have no other choice but to sit and wait.  Brokenness looks different for everyone, but it’s not something we can rush or something we can plan.  Trust me—if there was another more efficient (preferably faster) way around this, I would probably be writing that blog post instead.  Nevertheless, here I am.  I’m making myself sit in the chair, resting, if you can call it that, in the knowledge that God doesn’t have to work on my timeline and I don’t have to like how he does it.  When I do experience the brokenness he has in store for me, it will bear more fruit than my striving ever could.