April 13, 2007
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God’s love takes us on journeys we do not wish to go;
makes us travel by roads we do not wish to use;
to take us to places we never wish to leave.
– Ashley Null
I am writing from a plane – on my way back to Hong Kong from the US – and regular readers will know what that means. Flood gates wide open, creativity unlocked, words flowing like a river. I’ve also spent most of today pretty busted up. A little hard since I lead a large portion of the meetings all Friday… in fact most of the week. I did so with emotions bubbling up from within. Today was a tough, tough day. Bittersweet and of course to the stoic type, those non-F on the MBTI scale, even more of a challenge when this unknown F has you by the throat. My dear friend and colleague Paul, HE is a big F. If he wakes up to find me like this, everyone will be wondering about ‘the guys’ in 14H & 14K!
The struggle within is professional. There is a sea change underway in my life. The tide is going out and a few days ago I gave notice at my company. I’ve known for a while that there would come a point in my current role – which is changing to help scale the company – when I’d say "this isn’t the right thing for me." That time has come. But my friends, this is not a casual move for me. Never before in my life have I devoted as much prayer, sought spiritual guidance nor surrendered myself to what I perceived as God’s will in my life. This was a divine decision in the business world.
One might say it’s easy to experience God’s grace in a church environment or context. I mean really, being of service while working with other Christians for the better good of the world? It’s a safe, relatively easy place to access joy. But outside that environment, accessing and surrendering to God’s will and direction is much more challenging. We fight against our normal human beingness all the time and wish that God would just give us the answer.
In 1982 I made a wrong turn when I was called by God. As much as I knew or suspected what I was turning away from, I mostly pretended none of it was a real calling. Twenty-two years later on February 23, 2004 when the triplets were born 14 weeks premature, I knew on that morning the personal, spiritual implications of that day: the Lord was disciplining me back on course. Since then I’ve fought with discerning the proper course for myself. Looking back now, I can see the last four years being a grand test of maturation. Therefore, about four months ago when a phone call came in and a seed planted in my business world, I went to work focusing my spiritual attention on what this seed might grow into from a spiritual perspective. Every move I made was covered in prayer. Any area where I had confusion, I sought spiritual guidance. Tess provided a lot of clarity in terms of keeping me on track when the human being urge tried to take over the spiritual urge.
I remember one day I took annual leave for the final set of interviews. That day, there must have been 35 intercessors around the world covering me and the specific geographic location in spiritual prayer and protection. I walked away from those interviews with one message from God: "if you come here you have professional HR work to do and a lot of it. That’s what’s waiting for you." But no personal preference from Him. No peace, no direction, no bolt of lightening.
"Argh, just give me the answer!" I creid out.
"NO… you didn’t accept the last answer in 1982, why should I tell you now?" The whole process was very Calvinistic as I continued to focus my spiritual attention on this seed. Then BINGO a few days later the fog cleared and the peace came in like a warm wind releasing sailors from a becalmed prison. I immediately wrote a letter expressing my commitment to the role. The next morning the offer came in.
Flash forward to this week, to today even, when I started the process of saying good-bye to colleagues – really, really good, talented people – who have seen me through thick and thin. Wow, it hurt. Oh my gosh it hurt. I turned again to the Lord, "why, why the pain. That wasn’t part of the original calculation?"
"First, my grace is sufficient for you – you’ll survive – and second, you would have calculated incorrectly had I permitted you to experience these emotions."
On so on that note – as I left the office in the US office for the last time – I got it. I had discerned God’s will outside the context of the typical church environment. In that moment the tears of sadness turned to tears of overwhelming peace and grace. Somehow amidst the complexity of my paralysis of analysis – kids make these things much simpler, I should have just asked Sebastian what to do – I’d managed to be obedient to God’s will, as if a test. That’s always a great thing to experience. It’s also what I’m supposed to be doing right now, maturing myself as a Christian. Right?
"That’s correct, Charles."
Grace… overwhelming at times. I am clear, though, I am being sent to a place where my gifts will be put to good use, tested, developed and sharpened. Along the way God rewards, too. In this case I’m being sent to a place I am very excited and anxious to go. The best part is knowing I am on the right path – lots of peace there – and maybe someday God will bring me full circle back to 1982. And I probably won’t want to leave.
So I sail on… cutting through the current of humanbeingness. Yes, by the way, Maureen is correct. In the middle of all this I gave up food for Lent… 45 days of natural lemon juice. Not a single bite of food other than two communions. The lessons of that fast are still bearing fruit and I am confident will continue to do so for a long time to come. Right now I am present to a very grounded peace in my life.
The day has finally arrived when we’ll move out of our building after ten years. I remember when we first moved into 122 ten years ago. Tess was in Canada and pregnant with Sebastian. I moved us in and the first thing I did was snap a picture of the sunset then post it to our web site. This was pre-Facebook and blogs weren't big back then. Fitting, I thought, that as I cleared out of our flat this past week I'd snap this final picture of a 122 sunset. For the last two years we lived in a larger 122 flat with gorgeous views such as this one. We didn't really take advantage of those views enough, which struck me during we a we enjoyed bbq on the balcony a few weeks ago.
Regardless, we had many, many great times at 122, where I lived longer than anywhere else with the exception of my childhood home where I grew-up. One spot to remember is the one pictured at left. The last weekend in March 2001, Tess called from Canada. It was morning in Hong Kong and late in Toronto. Our flat was full of Chinese-speaking only contractors, painting and fixing the place for us to occupy. They were drilling and making a huge racket. When Tess phoned I couldn’t hear her so I went outside the backdoor of the flat. I stood in the spot pictured at left, looking down on the playground through the window. Right there on the phone, Tess read me a poem she wrote, that concluded with her telling me that she was pregnant. I was ecstatic and tried to communicate the news to the Chinese workers. I had to tell someone! They thought I was truly crazy, of course, as I charaded various signs including having a big tummy. Eventually one of them figured out what I was trying to communicate. “Awwhaw, you going to be daddy!” They were happy for me.
