Reading Time: 3 minutes

This week, the boys went back to college.

After 4 weeks or so of living the old normal – all 5 of us in the same house, watching movies together, eating supper together, reading devotions and playing games together, sometimes fussing together – this week life returned to the new normal.

Quite honestly, the new normal isn’t all that bad, either. It’s me, the B99, and our daughter, Sydney. We still enjoy movies, we still eat together. There are still devotions and games and we still find ways to fuss about stuff. Now there are regular FaceTime calls with the boys, and seeing their faces on a screen – while not nearly as good as seeing their actual faces – does help me push the lump back down that still forms every time I walk past their room and see the made (translation: empty and unused) beds.

Now, you probably didn’t open this blog to read about my parental transition to the college years (although, if you’re a parent of a freshman this year, I bet you can relate!), so let’s talk about seasons.

It’s funny how seasons work, isn’t it? In the brutal heat of the summer, everyone wishes for the cold of winter until they get it, and then they wish for the heat of summer. Every season holds some good and some bad. Most seasons are bittersweet, and if we’re not careful, we can get stuck wishing for seasons that are gone instead of maximizing the season that we’re in or anticipating the seasons to come.

There’s an interesting story in a rarely read book of the Bible by the name of Ezra about transitions and seasons. The temple of God (which was a BIG deal in that time) had been destroyed, and when it was time to rebuild it, a lot of 20-somethings were put in charge of the project. When they got the foundation laid, they took a praise break and “gave a great shout” because the foundation had been laid.

But check out what was happening at the same time that the 20-somethings were shouting: “But many of the older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation.” (Ezra 3:12)

[Tweet “Saying goodbye to what was so you can say hello to what’s now can be hard to navigate.”]

Transitions are tricky things. Saying goodbye to what was so you can say hello to what’s now can be hard to navigate. Most of us don’t like change, and so let me leave you with 3 insights that have helped and continue to help me when I find myself in the transition from one season to the next.

Learn from the past. Don’t live in it.

There’s so much wisdom in looking back to learn, but that wisdom fades if we look back too long. If it’s true that seasons come and seasons go (and it is), then a season going means that a season is coming, and what we just went through was intended to prepare us for what’s next. So learn as much as you can from what you’ve experienced, and carry that wisdom forward into the new season that’s coming. After all, the purpose of the past was to prepare you for the present and future.

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Remember why you started.

I’m a pretty big football fan and the team I pull for has never won a Super Bowl. That means that not only do they enter every off-season without a trophy and with a lot of lessons to learn from previous seasons, but they also face the next season needing something to make the pain worth it. They need to remember why they started playing in the first place, and usually, the answer is simply for the love of the game. I’m a pastor, and when my church experiences a new season, one of the ways I transition is reminding myself that one thing never changes: people need Jesus, and there’s a fire in me to introduce them to Him. Remembering our purpose is critical when we find ourselves stepping into a new plan, place, or season.

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Let God’s faithfulness in the past build your faith for the future.

Stepping into a new season is one of the hardest things to do, because every step into the new season is a step away from the old season, and there was a lot of good that happened in that old season. Even if there was more bad than good, more hard than pleasant, at least the old season was something known and familiar.

But familiar doesn’t require faith. The future does. So as you look back and learn, as you remember the passion that burned in you at the beginning, don’t forget to chronicle how faithful God has been in seasons of old. I can guarantee you that as you remember His faithfulness in past seasons, you’ll find yourself full of faith for future ones.

[Tweet “Familiar doesn’t require faith. The future does.”]

Reading Time: 4 minutes

For many, Easter doesn’t have a dark side. But for me? Well, let’s just say that I was introduced to the dark side of Easter a mere 7 months after we planted The Gathering, the church which I founded and pastor.

And like most bad relationships, my meeting with the dark side took place online as I scrolled through my Twitter feed just a few hours after we’d turned out the lights and locked the door on our first Resurrection Sunday.

It started innocently enough. We had just set a new mark for record attendance (by 3!), and I had come home busting to tell someone – anyone – about it. I logged into my social media accounts, and before I could post anything, I started to see it: post after post from other churches about their Easter crowds. Stories of packed sanctuaries, running out of chairs, salvations and baptisms that numbered more than the total people we’d seen in 7 months at our church!

Suddenly, my post about having 138 people in a coffee shop that should have only held two-thirds of that didn’t seem quite so incredible.

What had been an amazing morning now seemed average, and when I should have been enjoying the light of the resurrection, I began to feel the familiar darkness of a place where I had spent many of my earlier years: the tomb of depression.

Growing up, I felt invisible and unnecessary. No matter how many times I was told the opposite, it didn’t change the feelings. I became convinced that I would never be good enough and as a result of that, I believed that I would never be able to do enough. Those 2 beliefs were powerful fuel on the fires of depression and anxiety, because they ensured that I never felt like I was truly accepted, and that was all it took to allow isolation to become my home.

Over time, I’ve come to understand that feelings are more indicators of where we are than identifiers of who we are, and I’ve also learned that I can celebrate what God is doing in me without exaggerating it so that I can compete with you. Comparison and competition are depression feeders for me, and a big step away from the dark side of Easter for me has been learning to be okay with what God has called ME to do.

I love the simplicity of Galatians 6:4:

Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.

Depression is, in many ways, the exact opposite of satisfaction. Depression is never satisfied, never convinced that what we’ve done is good enough or will ever even be enough, and it seems to always keep discontentment on a low boil. That’s what got me for so many years about Easter. I couldn’t celebrate what God was doing in other churches because I couldn’t celebrate what He was doing in mine (or in me!).

So, some tips for those of us pastors (or anyone else) who struggle with the dark side of Easter:

Stop comparing

It’s funny how quickly we fall for this one, but the comparison trap is real, and it’s the quickest way to fall back into the darkness. As the verse above says, we can only do what God has asked US to do. Faithfulness in that is what leads to contentment, and when we’re content in OUR calling, we’ll be more content in the success of another’s calling.

Stop exaggerating

There can be a temptation to inflate the numbers and the stories of Easter (as if the story of God dying for us and being raised victorious isn’t amazing all on its own!), and one of the best antidotes to depression is a real, authentic commitment to integrity, even if it means my story doesn’t seem as grand as yours. In fact, the quickest way to enjoy God’s favor is to be true in the secret place about the numbers. That’s a big deal to God, who made sure that Jesus talked multiple times in Matthew 6 about honoring him in the secret place more than being honored by men in a public one.

Start celebrating

It’s hard to enjoy the season you’re in when you’re comparing yourself to or competing with the season someone else is experiencing. The best way to fight that is often simply by celebrating the season you’re in and honoring the people who are in it with you!

Proverbs 12:25 tells us that anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up. What I’ve learned over the last handfuls of Easters (and Mondays after Easter) is that the kind word works both ways: sure, HEARING a kind word can cheer us up, but SAYING a kind word  often does even more to lighten the heart and release anxiety!

So celebrate! I’m celebrating not only the highest Easter crowd we’ve ever had, but also a number of other churches that I’m honored to be in networks with who also had huge days! I’m reading over and over again the text thread that recounts numbers that our church may never attain and reminding myself that they are doing what God is asking of them, and that’s what I’m doing, too.

When it’s all said and done, faithfulness will always lead us to contentment where we are and away from resentment about where someone else is.

And faithfulness – by us or others – is something that God always celebrates. We should, too, and when we do, His light will break through the dark side of Easter.

 

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Ever since I announced that I’m goin to be running 50 miles on my 50th birthday to set 50 women free from human trafficking, I’ve gotten a lot of strange looks.

Most of them have come from the face in the mirror.

What am I doing?  Have I lost my mind?

(Please keep your answers to those questions to yourself.)

But without a doubt, the one question I’ve been asked the most is simply, “why?”

The answer to that question started in 2011, but wasn’t fully developed until the fall of 2015.

In 2011, I was on my 2nd trip to New Delhi, India, and in a frantic, last-minute “buy anything you can and pray to God the kids like it” shopping trip before getting on the plane to head home, I met her.

Well, she met me. She was about 9 years old – the same age as my daughter back home – and yet something was VERY different about this girl.

My daughter looked and acted like a 9-year-old. This girl looked and acted like a 29-year-old. It. Was. So. Bizarre.

She looked up at me with eyes that mesmerized me and asked if I wanted to by a necklace or 10, and I did. She was captivating, and quite possibly the best salesperson I’ve ever been around.  And yet something was so off about the whole transaction, and when I got on the van to head to the airport, I asked about it.

That night I learned what you have surely realized by now: that girl HAD to sell those necklaces because she was trapped, and she had been taught how to carry herself like a woman instead of a girl because American men will fall for that stuff. And then I learned that if she wasn’t rescued from that situation soon, she’d be selling something far more personal than necklaces.

I arrived home and kept that picture.

I looked at my daughter differently the first night back, maybe even the first couple of nights back. But over time, without even realizing it, the jolt I’d experienced during that shopping sprint faded.

Until I saw her again in 2013. In the same spot. Still (thankfully) only selling necklaces, but still selling for someone else and with no option to stop. My heart broke again.

It wasn’t until the B99 pulled up a trailer for a movie called Nefarious that I even realized that the jolt was gone, but as we watched the images of young girls and women being trafficked and Wendy sat with tears streaming down her face, I felt…nothing.

NOTHING.

Why am I running 50 miles in a day? Because I refuse to DO NOTHING just because I might not FEEL SOMETHING.

I refuse to let APATHY rule me, and so I am running because it reminds me that to be part of a MOVEMENT, we must MOVE.

To be part of a MOVEMENT, we must MOVE. Share on X

I’m running because my WIFE’S BURDEN matters to me, and this is one small way that I can honor what God is doing in her.

I’m running because I CAN and I’m praying that it will motivate others to do what THEY CAN.

I'm running because I CAN. I'm praying it motivates others to do what THEY CAN. Share on X

Speak up.

Stand up.

Donate.

Pray.

I’m hoping that you will be a part of giving a future to 50 women who only know a present from which they cannot escape.

If a lot do a little, it can change the world.

If you don’t believe that, I understand. I used to be you.

But now I’m not, and someday soon, you won’t be, either.

We’ll be the same. People with hearts that are broken because of a girl I met on the streets of New Delhi.

Someday, I pray I meet her again, on those same streets, grown up and…

Free.