Story
#2: Engineering, Youth Ministry, or the FBI?
Summer
began, and I had it all. A recently acquired master’s degree. A full-time
consulting job that paid very, very well and a part-time job I enjoyed on the
weekends. A church plant that I loved and friends I enjoyed. A spacious rental
house and a roommate who was easy to live with. A gym five minutes from the
house and Stone Mountain Park ten minutes away. By the end of August, I had . .
. well, I still had my friends and my master’s degree, and SMP was still open.
After
nearly half the church members moved out of state, the church plant dissolved
in June. In July, I lost both jobs in the same week. In August, my landlord
called to inform me that he had sold the house. I had a month to vacate. Even
my gym closed the next week. I no longer had any financial ties or commitments
in Atlanta.
Finding
no jobs that fit me in the Atlanta area, I began to accept that I would soon
leave a city I loved. Really, Lord? Am I
this hardheaded? Some people need a two-by-four upside the head to get the
point across. Did I really require this four-by-four?
As
quickly as my stability had crumbled, three new job options arose in different
states. A pastor from my hometown had offered me a youth pastor position
earlier in the year. I called him, and the job was still available. I had led a
retreat for the youth group in June, so I already knew the teens. I drove to MS
to interview, and they offered me the job.
My
boss at the consulting firm gave me a lead on an industrial engineering job in South
Carolina. I would have full charge of redesigning this company’s distribution
center—any industrial engineer’s dream—and a very nice starting salary. They
narrowed it down to a 20-year veteran in the field and me, a young guy with a
year-and-a-half experience. They offered me the job.
Then
on family vacation, my dad met an FBI agent on the beach. When the agent heard
about my situation, he said the FBI was looking for people my age with my
background in psychology. When I met him, he gave me his contact info and offered
to be a resource if I needed help during the application process.
In
three months, I went from having my life neatly ordered to having no long-term
stability to choosing from three dizzyingly diverse job options: youth ministry
in MS, engineering in SC and potentially heading to Quantico, VA to become an
FBI agent.
How
does one make such a decision? Of course, I wanted to know God’s will, so I
listened for all the ways He normally speaks to me. I spent much time in the
Word and in prayer and sought wisdom from trusted friends and family. Yet in
all three of those ways of discerning God’s will, I found many benefits and few
drawbacks to every job option. The next few weeks, God refused to make His will
clear to me. My anxiety about having no
job or prospects turned into anxiety about discerning the right job to accept.
I genuinely wanted to obey God, so why wouldn’t He show me what to do?
Eventually,
a friend asked me what I wanted to
do. For the first time, I considered the possibility that God was handing me
three good options from which to choose, willing to bless me and use me to grow
His kingdom in whichever career direction I chose. Reflecting on this, I
realized God was confronting my tendency to use Him as a crutch to avoid
responsibility. Submission to God's will is a good thing. But I wanted Him to tell me what to do, so I would have to own
neither the responsibility for making a decision nor the results of that
decision.
What
did I want? Part-time youth ministry in a small town? Financial security as an
engineer? The ability to carry a gun, run polygraphs and tell the ladies (in a
deep, manly voice), “I’m an FBI agent.”? The choice was mine. I owned the responsibility,
made my decision and never looked back. God’s refusal to be my crutch forced me
to grow as a man and as an adult.
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