Gutted
Pat Jones / Lead Pastor
Photo by Nikko Balanial on Unsplash
There are three, no four, times in my life that are permanently etched in my psyche. If I take a moment, I can still feel the depth of the pain. For three of them, I lay on the floor bawling like a little child in a fetal position. For the fourth, I knelt with my head on my son, Justin’s knee pleading for the life of his son, Judah.
The first three were times when I was faced with leadership moments in which I had no answers, and felt as if I was failing, and not just a little but a lot. I experienced people I loved, people I had invested in, people I valued, take on a worldly demeanor and show no faith in Jesus at all. In another incident there was deep betrayal and in the third, people seeking to oust me from my leadership role.
I was gutted, totally and utterly gutted. In the midst of the tears, I found it hard to breathe. And there was no consolation for a time. Just the pain and the weight. In each of those times, I experienced something I will also never allow to be removed from my memory. At the end of me and my sense of failure and my self-pity, came the overwhelming comfort and peace that flows from the heart of God. He had not abandoned me or rejected me or ignored me in my pain. Those ideas are from the enemy who wants to destroy us. Rather, I found these words of encouragement in Zechariah:
“This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’” Zechariah 13:9
He was lovingly taking me THROUGH the fire, building trust and removing faithlessness. He was strengthening hope and removing doubt. He was destroying pride and increasing humility. He was graciously emptying me of me so His glory could be shown. Never buy the lie that God is abandoning you, or against you, or not loving you because you are in a painful situation. He is molding His life in us. It hurts. Like I said, I still can feel the pain in my mind. But what the pain gained is priceless. And I will never let go of it.