Who are you? (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote about one of the hardest things Christian's have to do.  The more I think about repentance, and what I wrote yesterday, I wonder if that has something to do with why we are so easily confused about who we are.. We often are repentant towards God and want to turn our lives around and go the other direction, but we can easily miss the mark. We fall in this trap of dealing with who Satan is telling us who we are or what someone else tells us we are, rather than listening to who God says we are.  Other times, like right now for me, we just don't know who we are.

In 2002, God called me to music ministry.  Following Him through the schooling and degree program, I felt like I had found my identity.  I thought I had found who He wanted me to be, who He created me to be.  It felt like a great place to be.  It felt like I was in the middle of His will.  It felt like I had found who I was. It wasn't till a few years later that I learned that was not the case.

It's not that I wasn't doing what He was asking, but rather that was not my destination.  It was just a means to get me where He wanted me to be.

It was in that journey, that I followed Him and got my music degree which led met to a church in Olathe, Kansas called Living Hope.  I was changed a lot while I was there.  I learned what it was like to follow Christ as a community.  I learned how to really worship our Creator God.  It was through this change that I felt God transformed my calling to youth ministry.

I was thrilled again that He had brought me to a place again where He could use me. I felt like I was again in the middle of what He wanted me to do and that He was giving me a better vision of who He wanted me to be.  

I thought going into music ministry was going to be a stretch, because I didn't really know much about music at the time.  I just played a little.  I got over that fear and found a way to trust God through it.  Being a youth minister though was a different story.  I had built relationships with quite a few teens and had found that my music was going to be able help me relate to them in a different way. It made sense why He wanted me to get a music degree.  It was how He was preparing me.

Now what?

Shortly after that, my family moved to a church where we became youth ministers.  I created a lot of programs and did a lot of stuff with the teens.  I was living who I thought God wanted me to be.  I was being who I thought He created me to be.

After being there for 15 months, I started to see things in my life that I knew were not right.  A lot of my relationships were shaky at best.  I had been doing so much in my own strength that I had forgotten who I was.   I was lost.  I didn't know what to do.  We moved and my identity as a youth pastor was no more. 

It has been almost a year since then and I am still not sure what to do.  I can see reasons why we are living where we are and have had numerous opportunities we have never had before.  However, I am back to wondering who does God wants me to be?   Who is it that God created me to be?

I have to admit that I enjoy where I am at now, but sometimes I feel like I am wasting time.  I feel as if God has called me to be something more and I am sitting idly by as life is happening and I am not making a difference.

In my head I know my identity is not in what I do and that it is in Christ.  I know I am a child of God and He bought me with a price and I am His.  I know that....I believe that.....but do I live it?

So that is where I sit today.  I sit wondering.  I know I can't handle being in part time ministry.  I can't put my family through that again. I don't think God would ask me to, but I can't imagine though that God called me to a life of ministry before and has sense released me from it.  Why would I spend years learning, just for a year of service?  It has got me perplexed and really wondering what's next?

I have to admit, I hate waiting.  I hate being in a place of uncertainty, but that is where I am.

So now what.....