I quit both of my jobs.
Fiscally speaking, was it the most responsible option to choose? No, I don't think so. But spiritually speaking, I'm feeling pretty assured that I'm exactly where God wants me to be.
Starting a few months ago, I began to feel a greater and greater disconnect with God. There was just this icy distance between us that I couldn't understand. So, the first thing I assumed was that I obviously wasn't trying hard enough. If I just put forth a little bit more effort for God, he'd eventually come back and we could be tight again. So, I tried to get more involved in church, I tried even harder to get up early to read the Bible and I really, really tried to be more consistent in my prayer life.
Tried, tried, and tried.
It didn't take long for me to realize how futile that approach was. The following Matt Chandler quote pretty much sums it up perfectly: "All your church attendance, all your religious activities, your Sunday school attendance medals, your journals, having a "quiet time," reading the Scriptures - it's all in vain if you don't have Christ... We are saved, sanctified, and sustained by what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the power of his resurrection. If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of his glory and Christ of his sufficiency."*
And that was it. All of the components were there. All of the components except for the one who truly makes them worthwhile and beautiful: Christ. I kept trying to rely on my own works, my own cardboard-component-efforts to be a better Christian, thinking that God might see something bright there and decide to give me a nice feeling in my stomach once again (see my stuffed in the trunk post for a further discussion on that).
I think I grasped then that I didn't really understand God. Or the cross. Or the beautiful, constant, ever present power of Christ's sufficiency, not because of me or what I do or how long I have quiet time, but because God is the GREAT I AM. So, realizing that I would soon be whisked off to another amazing, yet crazy busy summer of working at camp, I turned in my two-weeks notices and am currently in the midst of taking a month to refocus on Christ. And no, I'm not bashing prayer, Bible reading, quiet time or journaling (these are all an essential part of my work break). But I've realized that they mean nothing without Christ, are purposeless without the cross, and are just downright boring and obnoxious to stay on top of when their core is buried in all of our self-reliant, last-ditch attempts to get close to God.
It's hard to admit that sometimes we just need to slow down. It's hard to sit still and breathe in the quiet presence of God. And it's hard not to feel like our standing with him fluctuates like the wind, always changing with how we rate on the 'good' or 'bad' scale of the day. But God's not the one who moves. He doesn't change our status as saved-by-grace-sinners, heirs of God, children of the Most High, a royal priesthood. And while I'm definitely not advising everyone to go out and quit their jobs, I want this post to serve as a reminder of the powerful core truth of the cross, and how we will always feel distant from God if that's not at the very center of everything we do. Whether it's taking an extended period of time to be alone with God, or working overtime seven days a week in a high-intensity job, it's still the same. God's still the same. The cross is still the same. His truth is still the same. And that's not ever going to change.
*Chandler, Matt. The Explicit Gospel. Crossway Publishing. 2012.
