The Exit Strategy Interview – Part 2

So we carry on the interview with meself from the last entry that explored where I am and how I got here. The point of this series of posts is to help uncover some of the issues behind the latest developments with me and the Stoke-on-Trent deal..

When Did You Leave Stoke-on-Trent?

Good question.  There’s a good argument to say that although the physical move took place in December 2009, the move for me personally had probably happened 18 months earlier and for us as a couple over the year.  To the outside it appears as if it was a snap decision, but it was at least two years in the making.  Why it took so long to move was about my wrangling with God over so many issues and incidents and experiences nudging me further to agree with something that God had been saying from the very beginning.  Talk about patience.

Why Did You Leave?

I’m sure I wrote in a previous post about how some stuff had happened over the past year in terms of significant moves – from our church facility, from our physical home and then from my base of operations at work.  These were good indications that something was going to happen in the final quarter of the year.

That needs to be understood, however, in context.  Without going into too much detail and extended narrative – fascinating though it would be to take you there – the best place to start is with my spiritual renaissance in 2006.  What spiritual renaissance?  Well as with most of us, I’m growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus, but certain times that growth takes a decided spurt just as it does with physical growth.  I had endured undoubtedly the worst year of my life in 2005 where the repercussions of some foolhardy ventures towards the end of 2004 caught up with me and sent me into a spiritual spiral where all that was near and dear to me was nearly gone and I was left in a mess.

The journey back from that was hard and arduous and it is only on reflection that I realise that here some of the seeds for the move were already sown in that key word – relationships.  However as the Law & Order: Spiritual Intent series is outlining, no horizontal relationship gets off the ground to fulfil it’s potential until there is a strong vertical connection.  In all the busyness for God, I had neglected this area.  So as 2005 turned into 2006 by the grace of God I was enraptured again with finding out more about Him and He likewise chose to share more of Himself with me.  This period of time from February to the late Summer of 2006 was a golden period of learning and being tried and learning more.  Some brilliant faith-stretching opportunities came my way in this season and I was having the time of my life.

Seasons come and go, though, and there was a reason the vertical reconnection was essential.  Just because God saw it fit to share more of Him with me, didn’t mean I didn’t have my own challenges still to address.  They would ebb and flow, flood in and subside during 2007 but things reached a head at the end of the year and again key relationships were put to the test and some were found wanting.  So 2008 needed to be a year of finding succour from different streams and recognising that physical, geographical, emotional, relational and institutional roots were not going to be the key to developing and advancing in the general direction that God had placed for me.

At the time, however, I was in too much disarray to pick up the hints that God was laying down at the time.  Being the ever gracious and loving God, even in the midst of the trying times, God inserted great people to be a support at the time and most importantly as 2008 drew to a close my relationship with Authrine took a significant turn for the better … another hint I failed to pick up on at the time.

I reported on the traumatic nature of the end of 2008 and such was the life we led that there was no time to stop and properly assess what was happening with what effect.  By the time that offer was made, well into the Spring of 2009, though, it was already too late for me anyway.  What was interesting about this time, though was how it showed what happens when you see things from different perspectives.  In as much as it’s important to be focussed, this cannot be at the cost of being aware of the bigger picture, and sometimes when that is considered from its different angles then you can get a better view of things.

So it was as Spring went to Summer that it became ever clearer that changes had to be made.  At last I caught up with what God had been saying from the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008.  This never made the actual process of going through with the changes any easier, and it took some hard knocks to finally get me to do what was necessary – this wasn’t just moving house, this was a move on a whole different level, very traumatic in its reach, but very necessary if that vertical priority that I had espoused earlier made any difference to me.

I still didn’t appreciate just how traumatic that move is until the first six weeks of 2010 and there maybe some more months required to get a better idea of what happened.  In the trauma and the pain, though, one thing that sticks with me with a great deal of clarity, just like the conviction that Authrine would be my wife is that this is the right move for us to make in obeying what God has told us.  It’s not about my comfort, but my conviction based on the only relationship that matters.

How does the rest of your family feel about the move?

This and some more pertinent questions will answered in the next entry.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd