Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
Before you were born, I set you apart.
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5

If you’re a pastor (or especially a youth pastor), do these words make you want to vomit?

Really, God?! You appointed me for this? You intended for this to be my life? This is what it means to be set apart? Really?!

Someone recently told me, “You get paid to do your devotions. You get paid to pursue deep relationships. You get paid to be at church on Sunday morning.”

And then with a chuckle that made me miss Janice from Friends, concluded, “Essentially, you’re getting paid to do what I’m asked to do in my spare time.”

I resent my “calling.”

If one more person makes a joke about me only working on Sundays, I might go UFC on his a**!

(And if another person says it to my wife, I will need to find a good trial attorney because she might go all Aileen Wuornos on his a**!)

I’m done explaining myself. I’m done trying to prove my worth. I’m sick of offering as defense for my week’s work, my tiredness and my kids’ frustration that daddy is never present…even when he is.

No matter how hard I work, I never feel like I am worth what they pay me…which isn’t a lot but still too much because they pay me to do that which we should all be doing anyways.

Why did God call me to this? Why did He set me apart?

I wish He would give me an answer!

So the other day I read Tullian Tchividjian’s new book Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels. It was so good. In fact, stop reading this. Go to Amazon and order it. Now. Seriously.

I was just planning on giving the book a cursory scan to prepare for the Steve Brown Etc. interview with Tullian (you should definitely check out the podcast) but three hours later, I had read it in its entirety. Cover to cover. Have you ordered the book yet?

In the book, Tullian demonstrates through the story of Jonah God’s pursuit of rebels. But not simply His pursuit of the rebels of Nineveh or even the rebel sailors who worshiped idols, but the pursuit of the rebel, Jonah.

From page 89…

God is more interested in the worker than He is in the work the worker does. He’s more interested in you than in what you can accomplish. If accomplishing Project Nineveh was all God cared about, He could have discarded Jonah and found a more reliable prophet. He knew Jonah would run; so why did He ask Jonah to go in the first place? It was because Jonah was God’s project. God comesafter Jonah not because He needs Jonah, but because Jonah needs God.

God has given me an amazing wife. Want proof? Go back and read my blog about my first sermon in which I share my wife’s journal from that Sunday. It doesn’t make sense to me that I have a wife like her. But I do!

The other day she told me about an image that came to mind as she was praying for me. It was God and me sitting together on the edge of a dock with our feet dangling in the water and our arms around each other’s shoulders.

That’s sweet, right? But instead of Kelly seeing this somewhat saccharine, Footprints-esque image, what I really need is for Him to answer my question. Why have You called me to this?

Am I missing something?!

So glad it’s all about grace.

Zach

 Email This Post This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Read, Zach Van Dyke. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.