I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Six years of preparing myself for ministry, attaining a Biblical Studies degree from a Bible college, interning at a large mega-church, pouring my heart and soul into a youth ministry for 2 1/2 years and seeing it grow and many young people transformed by the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus and now this.
Three pastors had just resigned a couple months earlier from the pulpit in one Sunday morning service and I was one of them.
I was in a Bible study at a friend’s house pouring my heart out to a group of Jesus followers that were longing to do church differently. I didn’t know them that well and felt a bit ashamed that as I shared the tears of emotion I was holding back just came out.
The group was very sensitive as many had similar experiences with the institutional arm of the church and so they offered to lay hands on me and prayer over me. They circled around me, laid hands on me, and one woman prophesied over me that she envisioned green pastures in my future.
Green pastures. I liked that analogy, because the previous two years had been a dry desert. We ended the meeting and I walked away refreshed and hopeful for the days to come with the promise that green pastures were ahead of me.
Green pastures. In my idealistic mind I envisioned a place where I would be in a good church, making a good salary, and in a good city. I had turned my idealism into expectation and was trying everything in my might to make that vision a reality. This quote by Peter Senge in his book, The 5th Discipline smacked me in the face years ago in Seminary; “A more daunting from of resistance is cynicism. In combating cynicism, it helps to know its source. Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist—someone who made the mistake of converting ideals into expectations.
Ouch. Converting ideals into expectations. I knew exactly what my green pastures were going to look like and I tried everything in my power to make it happen. A struggle of my false self is that it’s constantly looking to the next thing believing that if I could just get to the place or if that circumstance would work out then I would be at peace and have green pastures. It’s just another manifestation of codependency, living with the hope of that if I could just get that thing, or live there, or if I knew that person, then I would be good.
And then the next seven years happened, from 2004 to 2011, and life was anything but green pastures. I struggled greatly with identity, with calling, with depression, we moved seven times over three states and many more hard things happened. Of course there was some extremely beautiful moments in that span as we welcomed two of our children, but in terms of vocation, it was hard.
It wasn’t until 2011 while I was talking to a close friend, mentor and boss, Phil that I shared about the “Green Pastures” analogy in 2004 and how the previous seven years had been anything but a green pasture. Phil, in his brilliant and gift of making complicated things simple said to me graciously, “Maybe the green pasture is Jesus.”
Boom. There it was. Green pastures was never about circumstances working out the way I envisioned them to be. It was about the person and presence of Jesus in the midst of the valley.
Green pastures are not so much about circumstances working out, but about recognizing the goodness of God while you are in the valley. It’s about learning to be fully present in the moment that God has you in and embracing all that God wants you to have in that moment.
I wrote this below in a journal entry from 2011;
“The significance of what is happening in my life right now: Things are coming to fruition: circumstances are starting to work out in our favor (and even as I write this my heart gets sick). This is what I have been waiting for, for such a long time: circumstances to work out in our favor: For the green pastures that were prophesied over me 7 years ago to come to fulfillment. Well in a sense they are, but the lesson I have learned these past 7 years ago is that the green pastures are right there while you are in the valley. I have been waiting for the green pastures of circumstances to work out for me. For an opportunity to live from a deep sense of who I am. Waiting and waiting to get to that place. Well little did I realize that that “place” was right in front of me the whole time. That place was God telling me to let go and just trust him and be fully aware of what he was doing at that moment.”
Recently a friend and I were getting ready to do a training and we entered into a time of prayer for the event. My friend expressed the gratefulness to God of how when we were in those dark valleys and discovering what it meant to trust God in those moments that we prayed for times like we were just about to partake in. It’s discovering to be fully present in each moment and trust that God is working, although it might be painful. It was a good reminder that those moments that I prayed for in the valley and discovering green pastures there were coming to fruition.
It’s exactly what David is communicating in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”