Tough Times, Tough Questions
April 1, 1996
I trudged to the mailbox after a draining counseling session. I hoped to find a letter from the search committee of a big church. Or a large care package with giant homemade cookies and cheery notes from grateful church members. Or a check made out to me with an attached note: "Dear Pastor, consider this $1,000 a small token of our love for you. … " No such luck. The mailbox contained two medical bills from my wife's surgery, a phone bill, and the quarterly car insurance premium. Seeing the medical bills made my head throb. The church treasurer recently had bounced a check to the insurance company; we weren't sure if my wife's surgery was covered. The pile felt heavy as I dumped it on the kitchen counter. In seventeen years of marriage and ministry, my wife, Joy, and I have had our share of "bad mail days." Each one raises the "I wonder" questions about God's provision for us. I WONDER IF GOD WILL PROVIDE FOR MY NEEDS
When stress piles up as high as my stack of bills, I start wondering if we'll ever dig out. Our needs seem immediate, our wants seem unreachable. It's easy to think, Why don't I get out of this mess and get a real job? But those words sound similar to those spoken by Satan to Jesus in the desert: "Use those natural abilities to turn stones into bread. Why not cash in on your special abilities?" Similar thoughts tempted me when I was a church planter, with our third child on the way. Two weeks before my wife's due date, we gave God a tenth of our meager income (not too cheerfully, I recall). We drove home from church wondering what our child-to-be would wear to the church's grand-opening service. We had given most of our baby clothes to an expectant mother in our former church. The next day a UPS truck pulled ...
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