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This particular blog post is personal, more personal than many of the others I have written. You are welcome to read it – that’s why I have posted it in this public forum – and maybe something here will resonate with you.

When I first set up my web log, I chose the title with less than five minutes’ thought: Journeys. My idea was to chronicle my spiritual journey in juxtaposition with other journeys, as a pastor, father and husband, and any other “journey” that came to mind. As it turns out, much of my web-based journaling has been more in the realm of opinion and observation, and my personal journey has been less obvious to the reader. This time it is different.

I am thinking about where I am in life and in my work as pastor. This could turn out to be the most difficult and challenging year of my life. The church I serve faces major decisions about its future, and their desire to follow God in the path laid out for them is complicated by the turmoil in our denomination. This matrix is going to demand all the faith, wisdom, and leadership I can muster, and even then I am not sure if I am up to the task.

So many things that I learned in previous decades seem useless in today’s ministry environment. My learning curve has remained steep throughout my adult years, as I keep encountering cultural shifts that require new ways of bringing the gospel to the world.

Here is my personal question, in its brashest form: After all these years of experience, of lessons learned and lessons still not learned, is it possible I am not all washed up, but am now poised to use sixty years of preparation for the work that God has prepared for me?

I gained fresh encouragement in this thought just this week as I pondered the early, hidden years of Jesus’ life. Alan and Debra Hirsch, in their book, Untamed, are amazed: “The fact that the almighty God, Creator of all that is, hung out in a regular neighborhood doing regular things for thirty years without anyone noticing is simply staggering.”

Their conclusion is that Jesus spent those quiet years immersing himself in the world he came to save, just as his followers must now engross themselves in the world in order to understand, to relate, to love and to serve.

In his early life Jesus “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” It’s as though he was incubating.

Maybe all my years of ministry and reflection, observation and prayer, will help me find a way through the coming thicket. My hope and my prayer is that God has used my life experience as an incubator to mature and equip me for the days ahead.

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