A Season of Thanksgiving and Reflection

Tis the season for thanksgiving and reflection.  My wife and I have done quite a bit of that lately.

This time of year is always difficult for me because I am always overwhelmed with work and because of the losses I have suffered over the years. Both my Father and Mother passed during this time and now my good friend Dick Phillips has been added to that list. All of this serves to make us stop and take inventory of our lives.

I am particularly blessed to have a job, which although stressful at this time of year, gives me great satisfaction.  This past Thanksgiving, Metropolitan Ministries helped over 11,000 families. In Brandon alone we had 50 people turn their lives over to God and we actually baptized 5 of them on the spot. We have touched the lives of countless volunteers and donors in addition to the families we have served directly. In fact, sometimes the volunteers get more out of it than the clients.

I am blessed with a wonderful extended family of four children and one grandson who is a great joy to all of us.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I also have to take stock of my shortcomings.

As I’ve written before, I have to take responsibility for my sins and I have. I recently read an article in Charisma Magazine chiding Pastors who have had a moral failure for not stepping down from the pulpit for at least a year. That this should even have to be pointed out is mind boggling to me. In fact, the suggestion that you could get back in the pulpit after a year is way too soon in my estimation. I know that we are all different and we handle situations differently. David really knew how to repent and turn his life back to God. Maybe there are Pastors out there that can do that in a year’s time. For me, I don’t think you’ve even begun to deal with the denial in a year’s time let alone start the restoration process. And this is just taking into consideration the Pastor; what of the lives of the people in their congregations who have been deeply wounded by the betrayal? What of the families involved?

For me it has been a very long process and I just now, six years into the process, am getting to the point where I am dealing with some of the fallout that I caused. I have prayerfully written about my journey in these pages in the hope that His Spirit would use this as a tool for their healing.

In Romans 11:29 it says that God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. While I know this and I know that He has worked a restoration process in me, I am still very cautious about how and where I serve. I have a friend who has asked me to help develop the leadership of his church, develop small groups and act as chaplain to his worship team. I prayerfully accepted but only after fully apprising him of my past and where I am in my journey of restoration. I know that God still has plans for my life but this time it has to be all about Him because left to my own devices I would find some new way to screw things up.

I have heard back from a few people from my past and I am glad to hear that God is doing a work of healing in their lives. I am also hearing the level of pain that they suffered as a result from my actions.

My wife is also reaching out by having a mature Christian woman walk with her through her restoration. She also has started to admit to her role and is asking for forgiveness.

Make no mistake; it is a painful and tearful process. It is also a liberating process. Any sin that is exposed to the light loses its’ power. (Ephesians 5:13) Any sin repented from begins the healing process. By being yielded to His Holy Spirit through this process in humility, we also make ourselves available to be used by Him as He pleases. It is beyond me why, but it pleases Him to continue to use us despite our failures. In fact, it is through our weakness that His strength is revealed.(2 Corinthians 12:9)

The restoration process is a lifelong process. You can’t say, there I’m done with that. The moment you say that you are ripe for a fall. My fall was magnified by the position I occupied in the pulpit and the number of people I affected, but each one of us has sinned in some way or another and need to go through a restoration process of our own. The enemy accuses in order to shame. The Spirit convicts of us sin in order to forgive, restore and to keep us humble.

And for that, I am truly thankful.