…The sky over your head will be brass, and the earth beneath you iron. Deuteronomy 28:23

This past week I had coffee with Scott Heine, a pastor friend who has consistently reached out to me for years and especially since I stepped down from active pastoral ministry at the end of March. We met at Panera in Gainesville and I was about 1/2 way into my first mug of steaming joe when he stopped the chat and said, “So how are you really doing?”

He gave me that look that only experienced pastors can give. I think they teach that “look” in advanced masters or doctoral level electives at some seminaries. I must have missed that class. It’s a finely balanced look that communicates sincere concern, heart-felt love and deep knowledge with an unflinching “cut the crap” vibe. Well, let me tell you, Scott passed that class with flying colors. He probably teaches it at Grace Ministries for supplemental income.

He went on to explain that he thoroughly enjoyed reading last week’s newsletter, and it showed a healthy, spiritually mature outlook, but he was concerned that I might be burying or stuffing emotion. I assured him that people of German extraction are particularly good at emoting and that he had nothing to worry about, thank you very much.

In retrospect, he’s right. Last week, I shared the fruit of my 10 days of walking with God, but not the process. In reality, the whole process of surrender to God perspective is rarely neat and clean. In fact, God did not reveal to me the precious Scriptures or what He had to say about my current situation until Sunday afternoon. In other words, I walked for six and a half days before I really began to connect with God’s heart. He was there the whole time, but I was not ready.

The truth is, recent events have been unexpected and mostly unwelcome. I don’t know about you, but when difficult or confusing circumstances happen, my flesh has a two-fold response.

First, I crank up the guilt and shame machine. Since I am my own worst critic, my mind goes into overdrive as I examine any and everything that has transpired and weigh it against all possibly contingencies and my own perceived strengths and weaknesses. Now, a certain level of introspection in any situation is clearly warranted, but the Enemy tries to quickly leverage it into condemnation. Let me remind you, dear friend, that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).”

The second response is to blame the sovereign God of the Universe. The logic goes something like this… 1) If you are all knowing, and 2) if you are all powerful, and 3) if you are a loving Father, then this feels like a pretty shabby way to treat your child.

Once you follow through with this logic, then you are free to rant and rage, or engage in self pity, or sulk or justify pretty much any reaction that comes into your mind.

I was taught growing up that this was by definition wrong. That any form of venting, processing or feeling that didn’t immediately start with, “Well, Jesus… I just want you to be glorified in my life. I don’t need to understand, I just need to trust.” was a demonstration of a lack of faith.

What changed my view of this was the Psalms. Check them out, particularly, Psalm 137, 140, 69, 85, 102, 22, 74, or 88 and you will see the full range of human emotions on display. God wants to enter into our emotional processing and walk us through it. Psalm 142:1–2, says, “With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him.” In fact, I could not have gotten to the last 3 1/2 days of freedom until I walked the 6 1/2 days of processing.

So my “full disclosure” is that I am still in process, as are you and everyone who is humble enough to admit it. The good news is that God wants to join us in those places… so go ahead and take a walk with God. The end is better than the beginning.