Frustrated and Disconnected

By now it should be obvious that I have fallen well short of my goal of posting on a more regular basis. Needless to say, the events surrounding the passing of my dad a few weeks ago kept me away from blogging. Once again I want to thank everyone for your prayers and words of encouragement during that difficult time.

It's not just the situation with my dad that has kept me away from blogging. Truth be told, part of the reason I haven't been active in posting or even commenting lately is that I'm feeling a bit disconnected from things right now. I wasn't able to make it to the conference on the Holy Spirit, and I won't be in San Antonio in June. Since I am not pastoring at the present time (and haven't for nearly a year), I'm not really drawn toward discussions related to church leadership or other topics of interest primarily to pastors. And frankly, I've been in a bit of a spiritual dry spell lately. I simply cannot understand why God would give me a gift and a passion for preaching and teaching but not give me an opportunity to utilize them. Going through the search process this time around has given me more of a negative attitude toward the institutional church, as I perceive that many (if not most) of our churches are like Samuel was when God sent him to the house of Jesse to anoint Saul's successor---interested mostly in human standards regarding one's qualifications.

Despite my feeling frustrated and disconnected at times, I'm not planning on going anywhere. In some ways, for me to stop blogging would be an acknowledgment that I don't really expect God to put me in a place to use the gifts and passion He has given me. However, I'm foolish enough to believe that if God calls someone to a particular ministry He will give that person an opportunity to carry out that ministry---even if the person doesn't have a seminary degree and 5 years of experience in a growing church!