Maybe you, like I, feel like you're not where you ought to be in life, and maybe you, like I, feel that God's not giving you what you truly need and deserve. Yesterday, I was up on Mt. Charleston again near a gigantic currant tree that is bearing no fruit and felt like I really need to go cut it down. You see, God cut me down again this month as I was passed over for a promotion AGAIN, but instead of whining I asked what He wants me to do now. It is normal for mortals to be impatient, to expect great signs, great blessings, and great assignments to be done in accordance with our faith and faithfulness. However, we learn that sometimes the signs come quietly, the blessings come disguised as trials, and the assignments don't validate our worth or meet our expectations. Rather than waiting on God, we insist we know better and can do better and live our lives without trusting that He can do more with our lives than we.
I understand the temptation to desire to move on with your life. You get tired of being lost, of being alone, of being hurt, and so you find yourself tempted to glam on to whatever passes your way if it even approximates what you seek to have something. Sometimes it seems more real to have someone with skin on even if that skin isn't really what we envisioned as our Land of Promise. When Moses stayed on the mountain "too long" the Israelites concluded that he "must" be dead, that his god "must" be imaginary, and that it would be "better" to fashion one of their own from gold. When Nephi and his brothers failed multiple times to get the brass plates from Laban, they concluded it must be "sour grapes" and not worth their effort. We know God "clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds in the sky", but we don't trust that it's coming. We're not alone. Even my favorite prophet, Elijah, wasn't really sure God would feed him when he got to Zaripeth and then was upset when God slew the widow woman's son. However, God reassures us that, even when we must cut a hole in the roof and lower ourselves into the presence of Christ that when we actually draw near unto Him that He will also command us to "rise, take up thy bed and walk". Sometimes God's blessings aren't ready for us yet. Sometimes the people don't want to cooperate. Sometimes it makes no sense because the blessings would just be taken from us. So, we take what we can, hope it's enough, and refuse to give back. We are selfish, and we find it easier to take what is than wait on what could be. It leads us to wrong careers, wrong spouses, wrong addresses, wrong educational pursuits, and all sorts of wrong choices, and we sin because we miss the mark and miss out on the best God desires to give us. I myself find it hard to wait. I feel like I ought to be married with a family or promoted to a position that recognizes my worth and skills or in a position of authority and responsibility in my Faith. However, I am probably on time for MY story, because every story has different timing, details, and destinations along the way. There is no formula for how your life "ought" to be except that you OUGHT to trust in God's timing. He knows what you truly need and when it it advisable to grant you those blessings. Immature fruit is in some cases at least as bad as no fruit at all, so He asks us to wait until the harvest is actually ready.
Most of God's work and blessings are simple because "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" (Leonardo da vinci). Even Elijah, who talked with God a lot more than many other old testament prophets, noticed that God was not in the earthquake or the whirlwind but in a still small voice. When Naaman came to Elisha, he took offense at what God asked him to do because the rivers in Syria were cleaner and better, but his servant wisely asked him "IF God had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?" Most of the miracles Jesus performed were small, simple, and done to individuals and with only a small retinue of onlookers. When He bled in Gethsemane for our sins, nobody saw, because the disciples who accompanied Him fell asleep instead. Solomon rose to fame for a simple decision over a single child between only two women, but the wisdom of his perspective gained him a reputation that spanned the known world. When Jared's family left Babel, God touched some smooth stones and made them glow with light. Gideon defeated the entire Midean army with 300 men. To move a mountain or make the sea become dry land, to cross an ocean or build a ship upon the sand, we all think we would do those things if asked, but we do not do what He does ask- to love our neighbor and to forgive when we are wronged, to keep our promise and have our word become our bond. From an early age, I have known that God expects great things of me, and I expected that the fruits of those things would be easily visible to everyone everywhere. Instead, I served an "unsuccessful" mission, lost the blessings of marriage, struggle to get promoted at work, and stall in my wages. What I can see is that students pay me the compliment of taking multiple classes that I teach, retain and recollect what I teach them, and recommend my classes to their friends and family. It doesn't make me rich, but it keeps me employed. My religious leaders, despite the fact that I have no family of my own, trust me to help teach THEIR children with almost no oversight or correction. People don't know my name, they don't consider me a hero or aspire to be like me as a rule, and if any of them choose to be better because of things I teach them I usually don't know. I am supposed to be a teacher. I have known ever since I first heard the exchange between Sir Thomas More and Baron Richard Rich that God wanted me to be a teacher. My paternal grandfather respected me highly among his grandchildren because I became a college professor, even though he knew I wouldn't be famous or wealthy because of it. Even last weekend on the mountain, one of the field rangers told me that "[I] have a very explicitly clear way of explaining things to people." You may disagree, but in this inauspicious calling and vocation, I feel very strongly that I am doing God's work, earning His approbation, and seeing His blessings even if they're not visible to you or the ones I prefer to receive.
The wiser I become, the more I realize that blessings must come as trials, because it is in the furnaces of affliction that valuables become pure and refined. As we pass from grace to grace, success to success, in order to grow, the bar must be raised and push us to a greater degree of excellence. Leaving Egypt turned out to be a great crucible to purify and sublimate Israel into the kind of people God wanted to inherit His promises and Land of Promise. I imagine that the children of Israel erroneously assumed that leaving slavery in Egypt would mean perpetual hollyhocks, sunshine and skittles, and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice just because they listened and obeyed during the Passover. Boy were they wrong. Life got HARDER. When Nehemiah returned from Persia to rebuild the temple, I don't think he anticipated opposition. Yet, they had to arm themselves, organize patrols, and refuse to negotiate with their detractors because "We are doing a great work and cannot come down". Imagine the surprise in the Apostles at Calvary when their Master actually died on the cross- the Messiah they knew and loved and served was actually killed by the Romans, and then even after He arose from the dead, He left them to contend not only with Rome but with the Pharisees and Sadducee who derogatorily referred to them as "Christians" and continued to heap persecution on them. Even CS Lewis's fictional 'patient' discovers that Screwtape suggests that every trick be used to make his conversion as weak and as temporary as possible. Lewis also reminds us that some of God's best servants go through longer and deeper trials. Christ himself went into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the adversary and yielded not. Can you even last a week? It seems like there is always a desert (Moses crossed it several times) or a wilderness (Nephi) to cross in order for us to get to the promised land. Simply allowing ourselves to be converted is good, but it's only a single step on the path to the Land of Promise. Consequently many decide to stagnate, and although they may continue to refer to themselves as Christians, they walk a different path- a quicker, easier, more seductive one, without speedbumps or signposts that leads not to prosperity but to hell. God knows what He desires us to be. All too often, however, when He starts remodeling our lives, we fire the subcontractor Christ and return to Egypt because it was easy, predictable, and comfortable. We don't really want to do the work. We want the benefits without the sacrifices. We want faith without trial, testimony without temptation, exaltation without sacrifice. If you don't like the path getting harder, you don't really want to ascend to the peak and meet with God face to face. You must climb in order to rise up higher, and it's difficult until it becomes routine.
As a member of higher education, I see that most of my colleagues have become so learned that they think they are wise and have no need of a Savior and God to rescue and prosper them. However, a BA/BS, MA/MS, MD, PhD, JD, VD, or KBE do not make us experts on life, living, or the Lord. You can study at a "religious" institution and never actually learn anything about God and who God really is. I graduated from religious seminary and my Faith's institute of religion, but I do not take it upon myself to portend to speak for God on all topics to all people, to have all the answers, or even to have the right answers. Each person must forge their own personal relationship with Christ and trust His wisdom, His grace, and His timing. We like to rush things, forgetting that "if you rush a miracle you get rotten miracles" and that if you force something usually you get cut. We like to equate our visible status with our state of grace and assume that our rank, our wage, our titles, our families, and our address equate with God's approbation, forgetting that it rains on the just and the unjust alike. We like to think that, having been converted and convicted in our beliefs that God will continue only to allow the sweet fruits of His presence in our lives, forgetting that in order for us to walk He must take away His hand and allow us to walk on our own, drawing from the will alone a desire to continue to walk His way even when we feel He has abandoned us. Like a father teaching his son to ride a bike, God must take away His hand, and like that father, God continues to run behind us, ready to catch us WHEN we fall and help us move forward again. I wish I knew when God intends to grant me the financial and familial success I think I deserve and that so many people think I would use wisely. I wish I felt confident all the time in the value of my contribution, the influence of my testimony and perspective in class, and the value of that education to transform the lives of students. I wish I trusted myself as much as God seems to when He sends me another Kobiashi Maru to prove my character. I know that my life is not a movie or Nicholas Sparks novel, that most happy endings come at the ending, and that many people only reap what they sow later than they like. I know that most of what I assume is happiness and prosperity in people around me is a play. I know that there are things I cannot see or understand because I am not a god or a dad or an apostle, but I also know that they don't know everything either. When I pray, I feel like I am where I am supposed to be, even when other people fail to do their part, that God is pleased with my stumblings and that, interestingly enough, He wants me to be more patient towards and merciful with myself. Sometimes I don't believe He has a plan for me, but even when I can no more than desire to believe, I know that I am holding back the corruption of the adversary.
It is a disappointing month. The last years have been disappointing. Maybe even sometimes God is disappointed with me. I know I'm disappointed with myself. I also know that, if I were as bad off as think I am, I wouldn't care, i wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't hear. I wouldn't serve, I wouldn't love, and I wouldn't still pray. If I didn't have a testimony, I would have abandoned Him long ago, and maybe that means a lot more than I think.
