As job experienced the losses he did in his life, one of the hardest parts was that the relationships closest to him were the least helpful in dealing with his situation. Job had a group of friends, and he had a wife – but most of them were absolutely no help when life was at its worst. In fact, when everything had completley fallen apart, Job’s wife told him at one point, “Why don’t you just curse God and die?” (Job 2:9). Thanks, honey. I’ll just be over here… dying. Job had some real winners in his circle.
Not all of Job’s friends were bad, though. In fact, one of them named Elihu tried to help Job see God in the middle of his struggle. Elihu said this to Job in Job 36: 2-5: “Let me go on, and I will show you the truth. For I have not finished defending God! I will present profound arguments for the righteousness of my Creator. 4 I am telling you nothing but the truth, for I am a man of great knowledge. “God is mighty, but he does not despise anyone!”
Here’s the lesson, and it’s one of the reasons I started a new church: Reason #3: You CAN GET THROUGH IT… But not alone.
Job didn’t need a lot of people to help him. But he did need a few who were willing to challenge his thinking and refused to let go of him.
After losing what I did in my life – my house, my career, my church, my social network and friends, and my marriage, I had a couple of moments when I very nearly gave up on pretty much everything.
I remember one night sitting in my car, it was late at night in the middle of winter and bitterly cold out. I stared out the windshield and actually thought to myself, “I’ve got some family in California – I should just move out there. There is nobody in my life, including my kids, who wouldn’t be better off without me. Maybe it’s time for me to just quit everything and go find a quiet corner of San Francisco and just… quit, because there is nobody who really wants to be with me, given the choice, anyway…” It was broken thinking coming from hurting and broken places inside me that needed correction and healing.
And here’s where we run into the problem with the idea that, “…your truth is your truth.” It’s that when your thinking is jacked up, if your truth is your truth, then you’re utterly on your own with that reality. All of us need someone grounded in truth to sometimes be able to help us see what’s true and what isn’t.
I was very blessed in that I had 3 people in my life who challenged my broken thinking – I had my parents, who were unbelievable with me when I was going through the worst of it, I had a really skilled therapist who loves Jesus and spoke truth into the most broken parts of my thinking that were contributing to what I was feeling, and I had one friend left from ministry. I used to know everyone in ministry – now I knew one person – he’s a pastor and a friend of mine who refused to give up on me.
In fact, as I healed up from all this stuff and I was making progress, he and I were having breakfast one day, and he said to me, “I want you to come with me to St. Paul and help me start a new campus of my church.” I told him I can’t do that. He said, “Why not?”
I said, “Because I’m divorced. I’m disqualified, man… I’ve been DQ’d. Nobody will want some single, middle aged, divorced pastor helping lead their church…” I’m never going to forget this – my friend sat across the breakfast table from me and big tears began to fill his eyes.
“Who told you that?” he asked.
I said, “It’s just the truth – my story disqualifies me from my calling.”
He said, “I need you to listen to me… and you need to listen good… You’re one of the most talented, skilled, and called pastors I’ve ever met. What you’ve been through doesn’t change any of that. The devil cannot take away your calling – all He can do is convince you not to go through with it. Your story isn’t over. Your ministry isn’t over. God is still God. You are still not. Your calling is still your calling, and you’re still who He says you are. It’s time for you to stop letting broken things that have happened to you make decisions for you about what you’re going to do with the rest of your freaking life.”
He absolutely wrecked me. In challenging my thinking about God, calling, identity, all of it – my friend started me on a journey back to remembering who I really am and what I’m really called to. I’ve come a long way from that day of sitting in my car wondering if I should move to California to this one, but I’m going to tell you right now: I haven’t done it alone. I still can’t. Nobody can!
When it all went south, Job needed a friend who would speak truth to Him about who HE IS and who GOD IS. He didn’t need the girlfriend or the dude who took him out for drinks at the bar and would agree with all the stupid things Job already thinks about his situation. He didn’t need someone saying, “Oh, that’s what she said? Bro, I would leave that so fast…” Or, “You know, Job, California actually sounds kinds of nice – my gosh, the people in your life don’t deserve or appreciate you anyway!" Most of us would rather have our thinking affirmed than challenged – even when what we’re thinking is wrong. But you need a few people in your life who are going to shut that mess up! I needed 2-3 people to point me to Jesus, and I needed God to remind me of who He is.
So…What if we started a church where we did that for people?
What if Second Story could be a community that understands that the Bible isn’t kidding when it says it isn’t good for man to be alone, and that when you’re most hurting and you feel most alone, you need people to speak truth over the lies you’ve believed?
What if we could start a church where people actually believed that what’s ahead of them is greater than what’s behind them – and not in a cliché kind of way, either. Like this isn’t pie in the sky Hallelujah when I die. I’m saying, what if we could help people see as they heal that nobody is ever too far gone! Nobody is out of reach! There’s nobody God can’t redeem! If the entire human race didn’t need a second story and a do-over, then there’s no point in God sending Jesus in the first place!
So why is it so easy to fall into the idea that everybody but you can experience that with God? Why is it so easy to think that God’s grace is sufficient for everybody BUT you? Why do you think the Bible calls Jesus the SECOND Adam, and we’re awaiting the SECOND coming, and we live inside the new and SECOND covenant? It’s because when you learn what it means to pick up your cross and follow Jesus, you understand that your first story might be over, but your SECOND story is just beginning!
So! What if we did church like we believe that? That everyone, no matter what they’ve done, where they’ve been, what they’ve been through – no matter who left you, no matter what your history is – everyone, everyone, everyone – has a place that, with a lot of grace and love, stands on truth asks the lies we’ve believed: “Who told you that?”
Everyone needs a community in their lives where God can remind them that grace powerful, that beauty can really come from ashes, that dry bones really do live again, and your story isn’t over. Maybe you’re more spiritual than I am, but I just don’t think these are conclusions people just naturally come to on their own. I know I didn’t.
In the Garden of Eden, God’s story was the first, FIRST story to come to an end – that’s WHY JESUS WAS SENT IN THE FIRST PLACE!
So if God can live in the Second Story… What if we did church like we believed that He really wants us living that second story out with Him? Wouldn’t that be good news… for everybody?