Incredulous Over Cinnamon Crunch Bagels and Learning Transitions

"I can't believe you're still doing this."

It was April, three years ago, a chance meeting at Panera as I munched on a Cinnamon Crunch bagel and worked on end of the year campus stuff. He was a former co-worker who started working with InterVarsity the same year I did, and he was incredulous that I was still on campus.

To be honest, I was a bit surprised, too.

But after fourteen years on campus I'm about to transition to a different job. Same organization, but a very different kind of work. Some might say that it's about time!

What transition does for me (and I'm guessing some of you) is generate eager anticipation mixed with anxious fearfulness about the future. Depending on your genetic make-up and your past experiences, you might be a bit more on the eager side or a bit more on the fearful side.

These past several days (as I've re-gathered myself post working 14 straight 16 hour days at Rockbridge) have been good as I've been engaging more concretely with the Lord about my own transition.

I want to share some of what's been helpful for me as I've engaged with the Lord, particularly in prayer. Not because I've got it all figured out, but because it's what I'm learning about in real-time. And that's what I like to blog about!

1. To quiet my anxious side, I lean into God's past grace. I pray specific prayers of remembering how God has been faithful to me in the past. The same God who was good to bring me thus far will be good to go with me into the next step of my life.

This re-frames some of the issues that cause anxiety. Was I ready for all that these past five years have thrown at me when I came to UNC? No. But it wasn't about me. It was about the Lord. He gave me grace for each day as needed.

He is enough, I'm not. My hope isn't in my own competence but in the Lord's perfectly timed grace for each day. And so I pray that back to the Lord. And I ask for help to remember that core, fundamental truth when I get fearful about the future.

2. To center my ambitious and perhaps over-eager side, I re-frame all that I typically call "mine" in light of the reality that all things are his.

These are not "my days," they are his. I do not create any of them, they come unbidden to me. And I am only truly free when I am doing as he would command me to do at any given moment.

And so I deliberately pray over my calendar, offering him all the days that are left in my life, to do whatever he would want, whenever he would want. He is the Master. I am his servant. He calls me friend, and so I am, but I am a servant still. And so I do or don't do whatever he would or wouldn't have me to do in the days that He gives me. That's my job.

Any dreams that I might have about what the future holds must be submitted to his will for my life at every stage of my life. Either I do that or I cut myself off from life. Those are my options.

Further, these are not "my gifts" or abilities. They are God's. He has given them to me that I might have something to offer back to him, to be used in his service. They are instruments of blessing insofar as they are submitted to the Lord and his Spirit.

When I attempt to control or manipulate His gifts for my own ends, the consequences are devastating and destructive for me and for all those around me.

And so I pray prayers of submission over the gifts he's given me and I offer them back to the Lord. And so I center the side of me that is excited about new opportunities to lead and to serve. Some of that is rooted in the Lord, some of that is rooted in my own selfish flesh.

But again, it's not about me. It's about him. And so I give him back what he's given me, saying yes to him before he even asks me to do anything with what he's given to me, so that I might know life and find joy in the work ahead.

My incredulous former co-worker is now working commercial real-estate in Charlotte. I'm still hanging around InterVarsity-land, working mostly with campus staff and some with students. Maybe it doesn't sound all that different to you. It feels pretty significant to me.

But regardless, I'm hoping that I might be nearer to Jesus at the end of this transition...and I'm hoping that maybe the new gig means that I get more opportunities to munch those Cinnamon Crunch bagels at Panera.