Change Ahead

On October 21st we will finish our first year in Guatemala. We can't believe that it has already been a year. God has showed his hand faithfully in every opportunity, every conversation, and every new endeavor. By the grace of God, Justin has been able to faithfully finish up his responsibilities at Potter's House. It has been quite the adventure.

As many of you may remember, our first step was to begin with Potter's House. This was with two primary goals:

1.   We wanted to support Guatemalan initiatives

2.   We needed a year, at least, to get ourselves settled into Guatemala, begin learning its culture, and its needs, to better understand what our next steps should be.

The opportunities that we have had over the course of this year working in the garbage dump communities have been amazing. We have learned a lot, grown as a couple, and had our character challenged and sharpened. We are grateful to all of you that have walked along our side over the course of this year. It hasn't been easy adjusting to a new country, but it has been an amazing opportunity to see God's faithfulness through all of you. 

We can't thank you enough!

Plans for the Future

Our relationship with Potter's House will continue, but not in the same way. Jenny will continue teaching English classes at Potter's House, and our mission agency, TEAM, will have other missionaries that are serving there. Justin is going to begin dedicating himself to our church-planting efforts.

The way our initial timeline laid it out is that our year at Potter's House was our first step. We believe that through this year we have accomplished our two goals listed above. We have had the opportunity to get behind Guatemalan's and their initiatives. We have not only had the opportunity to get to know Potter's House, but also many other ministries here in Guatemala.  We have also gotten to know Guatemala, its needs, and its culture, and have a clear vision for what our next steps are as missionaries. 

After prayerful discussion, we, along with TEAM and Potter's House concluded that the garbage dump communities are being well served by Potter's House and other organizations. As a result, we decided, together with TEAM and Potter's House, that we would focus our energies in different areas of Guatemala. Primarily, we will be focusing on two areas called El Naranjo and Bethania, which don't have the kind of spiritual influences that the garbage dump has, but many of the same issues.

With that said, the other thing that God has done over the course of this year is that He has already begun to form a team of people around us. God has brought 3 other couples into our life that have the same dream and vision that we do. Along with this team of people, we will be dedicating ourselves to church planting. Our hope is to see churches planted that plant other churches. We hope that through these communities of believers, we will be able to do our part to challenge current models and build healthier models of evangelicalism in Guatemala.  

Alongside of that, TEAM, our agency, has asked me (Justin) to take more of an active role in developing new initiatives here in Guatemala. We are actively seeking out more partners like Potter's House, where missionaries can come and serve. It is an awesome opportunity!

Two things in closing:

Our heart remains broken for the physical needs of Guatemala. 

Guatemala City has close to a dozen more areas like the garbage dump, except without the garbage. These places wrestle with poverty that is unheard of in the USA, crime and violence, all sorts of drug abuse, trafficking, and anything else imagineable. We want to see a gospel movement unleash gospel-believing disciples who can have an impact on these areas.

God has broken our hearts for the spiritual needs of Guatemala. 

As we mentioned elsewhere, Guatemala's evangelical culture is not all that evangelical. There are enormous, cultic issues with the largest segments of evangelicalism. Even though the numbers say that Guatemala is 40% evangelical, many surveys determine the number to be closer to 10%. God has placed a heavy burden on us to help establish healthy, gospel-proclaiming, city-impacting communities of believers all throughout Guatemala.

So, all that to say, the plan is still the same. God has called us to plant churches! It is just going to look a little bit different than we initially thought.

With that said, we all can celebrate, God has faithfully brought us through Phase one!

Be on the lookout for a video that will be explaining our new adventure in a little more in detail.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write or Skype.

Guatemalan Evangelicalism: An Overview

Over the course of the past year we have had the opportunity to learn much of the culture of evangelicalism in Guatemala. It has been a fascinating study, and God has given us the opportunity to put our analytical skills to use! We wanted to share what we have learned with you so that you have an understanding of the context of where we are working. This context is necessary to understand some of the upcoming changes in our ministry focus.

Like most other Latin American countries, the Spanish settled and colonized Guatemala in the 1500’s. Naturally, the Spanish introduced a certain flavor of Roman Catholicism which was prevalent in Guatemala for years. At the same time, there was, and still is, a heavy dose of indigenous mysticism and animism rooted in the local Mayan ancestry. Generally speaking, Guatemalan religion suffers from large amounts of syncretism—the blending of organized religion and indigenous beliefs. 

Nevertheless, evangelicals have been in Guatemala for almost a century. The first evangelical missionaries were invited by President Justo Rufino Barrios in the late 1800’s. However, despite their early introduction, Guatemala remained largely Catholic until the 1970’s. 

That began to change when in 1976 a major earthquake hit Guatemala. This caused an influx of evangelicals, primarily Pentecostal denominations, to provide relief and support after the earthquake. Coupled with a weakening Catholic church, this relief and support provided the framework for the fast growth of evangelical churches in Guatemala. Churches were planted, leaders were appointed, and quickly a large network of Pentecostal, evangelical churches was established. (For more info on the history of Guatemalan Evangelicalism click here.) 

Earthquake in Guatemala, 1976.
Source: http://www.que.es/ultimas-noticias/internacionales/fotos/terremoto-
guatemala-coches-destrozados-ciudades-f595779.html

While I have no experience with these “evangelical” churches in their initial stages, I will briefly outline my experience with them, as they exist now. Much of this information has been gathered largely through hundreds of conversations with local Guatemalans about their church experiences. Almost every person I encountered has had a church experience that includes one, if not more than one of the following four marks. Many of them have experienced all of them. 

1. Biblical Illiteracy

There are few Guatemalan pastors who have been trained to study and teach the Bible. The problem is not that these pastors have been trained poorly, it’s that they have no training whatsoever. This often results in a twisting of scripture for the expedient use of the pastor. Many of them preach the Bible in complete ignorance. People with no training can certainly teach and preach. However, they will almost always teach and preach what they have been taught. As you read the rest of the document, you will hopefully understand why this is such a big issue.

There are two particular ways in which their lack of training is displayed. First, pastors have no grasp of biblical hermeneutics. Not understanding the differences between the original audience of the books of the Bible, pastors encourage their congregation to claim promises of Scripture that never applied to them in the first place. Things like “God wants to expand your territory” or “God has plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” On top of that, these promises are taken as promises that will be fulfilled personally and specifically instead of corporately through the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

Second, many pastors don’t prepare for the delivery of their sermons. With the high emphasis on the supernatural, some pastors trust that the Holy Spirit will give them the words and the message that they should preach. Having no plan, no course, and no understanding of how to teach God’s Word, pastors fill the ears of their congregants with heresy and false teaching contradictory to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

This biblical illiteracy then becomes a perpetual problem: pastors who don’t appreciate the Bible teach their congregants to under-appreciate the Bible. A pastor that understands how to exegetically explain a verse of the Bible is a rare gem. The average Guatemalan, no matter their demographic, has little to no experience reading or studying the Bible on their own.

2. Pastoral Authority

Hierarchy and authority are important values in Guatemalan culture. Guatemala is a country that has been ravaged by economic poverty, military oppression, and civil war. Historically, Guatemalans were conquered and then enslaved. The average Guatemalan’s sees himself as a follower, a servant, someone with little to offer to the world around them. 

Due to this “follower mentality”, Guatemalans are looking for someone to follow and for many people, the pastor has filled that void. Pastors have become the life-coaches for many evangelicals in churches. Subsequently, pastors have become men with extreme power and extreme authority. Unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon to find pastors who abuse that power.

I’ve heard countless stories of pastors who receive foot massages from different women in the church before giving messages. Pastors who expect people to respond when he prophesies over them and accept his prophecy. Pastors who lock the doors of the church building during services so that no one can leave. Pastors who walk around the congregation recording how much money people gave to the offering. Many of them, sadly, have crowned themselves as “the anointed leader” which is not too far from Catholicism’s own claim to papal infallibility. Well-known pastors are rumored to have multiple families, avoided criminal charges, and have gotten away with much of it because they are the “ungido de Dios”—God’s anointed leader. This corrupted view of pastoral ministry only hurts the people surrounding them.

This pastoral authority perpetuates all sorts of issues in the every-day life of the congregants. They do and say certain things only because “the pastor said so.” Their lives are not informed by God’s Word, as mentioned above, rather they seek and follow the pastor’s guidance for most of their life’s decisions. The reformation doctrine of “the priesthood of the believer” never really made it to Guatemala. Therefore, the pastor holds all the authority. 

3. Longing for the Miraculous

People from different cultures see the world through different lenses. In the United States we have a tendency to be pleasure seeking, efficiency-loving rationalists. We see the world as a series of opportunities to capitalize for our own pleasure or gain. We are often skeptical of anything that is not measurable, tangible, or visible. 

Guatemalans are quite the opposite. Having a cultural lens that is rooted in their Mayan ancestry, Guatemalans are more open to the metaphysical or supernatural. Many have stories of experiences with angels, demons, and God Himself.

Many evangelical churches have capitalized on peoples’ great desire and longing for experiencing the miraculous. They long to experience the God of the universe in a real and present way. Guatemalans have strong faith in the God of the impossible. Whereas in the United States sometimes our theology proper could be summarized as, “God can do anything, but he probably won’t, so I’ll get to work”, many Guatemalan evangelical’s theology proper could be summarized as “God can do anything, and He will, I just have to pray and have the faith.” 

An aerial picture of one of the glory nights of healing held in Guatemala.
source: https://twitter.com/chepeputzu/status/450826026411503616

Healing services are a common and almost expected experience. Huge healing rallies take place multiple times a year through a variety of different churches. Exorcisms, prophesy, and speaking in tongues are all highly valued occurrences among the evangelical community in Guatemala. Some may even go so far as to say that these are the means of assuring that God is with us, He is active, and His favor rests upon us. The spiritual experience, for many, is not characterized as what Eugene Peterson would call, “a long obedience in the same direction.” The spiritual experience must be characterized as more and more extremely intense supernatural and spiritual manifestations.

A large percentage of the evangelical culture in Guatemala has adopted the language of Pentecostal churches. Church leaders refer to themselves as Apostle _________ or Prophet ______________. Many of these prophets or apostles have done much damage in the name of their spiritual gifting. Their use of spiritual gifting is similar to the pastoral authority mentioned above. They claim a kind of power that transcends them and gives them the freedom to speak into the lives of other people. Often, these prophecies are life altering to the recipients. Yet, many of these prophecies are not actually fulfilled. Many of the “apostles” and “prophets” do not settle down in one congregation and establish a track record, rather, they are more easily compared to traveling charlatans prophesying huge amounts of success and financial gain for church members, and then leaving before anyone can determine if it was true. If the prophecy is not completed, as we will mention below, it is almost always blamed on the individuals lack of faith or sin. 

At a conference, one Guatemalan apostle encourages the tens of thousands in attendance to prophecy over themselves. He says “today we declare prosperity instead of failure, life instead of death, and comprehensive blessing in the name of Jesus. Prophecy it. Prophecy it. Prophecy it. What we are declaring are truths that are undeniably in God’s Word.”

4. Word of Faith/Prosperity 

Two prevalent concepts, that go hand in hand, are the word of faith movement and the prosperity gospel. The word of faith movement teaches that God’s blessings are ready to be delivered; all that one must do is claim them, especially out loud. In the United States we would refer to this movement as “name it, claim it” theology. 

The prosperity gospel, often referred to as the “health and wealth” gospel, is a movement that argues that God’s central desire for humans is that they be physically healthy, materially wealthy, and happy. Preachers of the prosperity gospel teach that by doing certain things like giving financially, or as they call it “sowing into their ministry”, they will secure blessings from God. One of the most popular phrases you’ll hear is, “God wants to open the windows of heaven and let his blessings rain down.” Believers are encouraged to pray for the things that they already desire and claim that God wants to give it to them. They are also encouraged to sow into the preacher's ministry so that they may reap God's blessing. Many of the people that live in poverty or in sickness are told that they are, in fact, in that situation due to their own lack of faith, or sin, and must give more. 

The prosperity gospel and the word of faith movement are in direct opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rather than communicating that humans are sinners in need of redemption and reconciliation, the prosperity gospel encourages humans to use God to satisfy their own desires. God is merely a means to an end for humans to get what they want. It is a movement that ignores large parts of the Bible, and manipulates other parts to fit their own arguments. 

The word of faith movement and the prosperity movement characterize the largest percentage of the neo-pentecostal evangelical churches in Guatemala. Individuals seeking relief from pain and suffering, or seeking relief from economic struggle, or seeking God’s blessing for their life, find refuge in evangelical churches that tickle their ears with the very message they want to hear, “God wants to give you everything you want. God wants to heal you. God wants your problems to go away. All you have to do is keep coming to church, tithe, and have enough faith.” Many people find themselves enslaved to churches and pastors giving hours upon hours of their time each week and paying almost their entire salaries to the church under the assumption that God will pay them back. Many pastors live comfortable lives at the expense of the individuals in their church. For years there was a common saying in Guatemala, “If you want to get rich, become a pastor.” 

An inside shot of one of the megachurches built on principles of the
prosperity gospel. They see close to 25,000 in attendance weekly.
Source: http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/comunitario/Cash-Luna-inaugura-
monumental-templo_0_909509070.html

The three previous marks cleared the road for prosperity gospel and word of faith preachers to find success. By their own authority, they control their congregants with empty promises rooted in biblical illiteracy. They often promise experiences of the miraculous, having “nights of glory” which are regularly scheduled healing services. When the miracles don’t happen for certain individuals, the blame is shifted to the individual’s lack of faith. This problem perpetuates more of the same problem, because few individuals are ever encouraged to read, learn, or study their Bibles. The error of these movements is that they exalt man and decrease God. The true gospel frees men to say along with John "I must decrease, He must increase."

There are a number of articles and journal entries condemning both the word of faith movement and the prosperity gospel as dangerously heretical. There are some here, here, here, a video, and here 

In Closing

Although Guatemala claims to be 40% evangelical, some studies say the number is upwards of 60%. Sadly, those statistics are misleading. When they say “evangelical” they don’t mean centered on the euangelion or the gospel. They essentially refer to these non-catholic religious events. With a few exceptions, these non-catholic, religious events are shaped by the 4 marks above. Claiming to be evangelical in Guatemala is tantamount to claiming to be Christian in the United States. It doesn’t reflect any specific system of belief. 

As sad as it is to admit this, many Guatemalan evangelicals have been deceived into believing that they have found life in Christ. Instead of reconciliation with God, many Guatemalan's have been taught by their pastors to seek blessing, or the miraculous, or prosperity. For many, it is not God that they seek; it is an experience, a seemingly powerful word from a prophet, or a blessing that will release them from suffering or economic turmoil. 

Guatemala desperately needs the true gospel of Jesus Christ to be proclaimed. It is only in the proclamation of the true gospel, that the deception of the current “gospels” that plague Guatemala will be revealed for what they truly are. Our hearts groan with Paul as he writes in Galatians 1:

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 

Please continue to pray for Guatemala. Pray that God would open doors to proclaim the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray that, as the gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, people’s minds and hearts would be opened to the beauty of the cross. Pray that people would see the real beauty of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray that Guatemalans would learn to treasure Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected, above all things. 

Soccer Tournament

We had an awesome opportunity in July to host a soccer tournament for the group of high school students from the garbage dump communities. We bused over 150 kids out to a professional-grade soccer complex, and put on a tournament. We then had the opportunity to share the gospel at the trophy give away. Check out the video.

Torneo from Justin Burkholder on Vimeo.

The Guardian

A few years back there was a movie released called The Guardian. The movie centers on the rescue swimmers for the United States Coast Guard. These are the men and women who valiantly defy all risk and harm, diving into storms to save drowning service men. If you’re one of these rescue swimmers you can confidently know that your work matters, your efforts are not in vain, and the lives saved will be your badge of a life well-lived.

A few months back I (Justin) started a meeting for a small group of men. The point was the have a very intentional and personal relationship with these men. The nature of this relationship would be primarily in spiritual guidance – discipleship. The more that I meet with these men the more that I find myself identifying with these sorts of films. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a sort of messiah complex, where I have to jump in and save these men. It is quite the contrary. The theme that I identify with is the drowning, not the rescuing.

The men that I meet with are fighting to stay afloat. Drugs, alcohol, violence, all are undercurrents pulling them under the surface of the water. On Wednesday evenings we come together and they take in one big gulp of oxygen, only to wake up the following morning to the same titanic waves threatening their very existence.

Of course, the drowning for me is a bit different. I walk into the room where we meet, and that’s where the drowning begins. Every single day is an exercise in recognizing how incapable I actually am. In my own strength and wisdom, I have nothing to offer these men. I hear myself regurgitating biblical truths and think “tomorrow they will face a myriad of challenges that I know nothing about, I sure hope this helps.” The drive home from those meetings is often lonely. I am constantly faced with the undercurrents of my own inadequacy.

But there is a quote from The Guardian that has always stuck out to me. A survivor of a rescue mission swears to Jake Fischer, played by Ashton Kutcher, that there was someone in the water helping him. Fischer responds, “There is a legend of a man who lives beneath the sea. He is a fisher of men, a last hope for all those who've been left behind. He is known as the Guardian.”

            For the USCS rescue swimmers, the Guardian was a legend. For missionaries, drunks, murderers, suburbanites, addicts and anything in-between, the Guardian is a reality that we must cling to. Once we confess that Christ is King and begin to follow Jesus, the waves don’t calm down. As a matter of fact, for many, it seems like the waves intensify, for a time. As followers of Jesus we know that our King can lead us by still waters, yet we find our lives too often characterized by chaotic waves deafening the still voice of the Guardian who is with us.

            Every Wednesday night I come to recognize that fighting the waves is a useless battle. The magnitude of the ocean that is the human life is way to vast and way too strong for a measly little guy like me. Instead of battling, I must learn to rest in the Guardian. Jesus Christ is not just the last hope –He is the only hope. He is the only hope for any and every vice that a human will face. Only Jesus satisfies, only Jesus heals, only Jesus restores. He is the fisher of men. He is the one who rescues. He is the one who willingly dove into the chaos that my sin caused, pulled my head above the water, and is carrying me to safety. And, He is the only one that can do that for the men that I meet with as well. I can’t. I’m drowning. Jesus is the Guardian.

6 Lessons from 6 Months in Guatemala

             The day we flew to Guatemala                 

It has been 6 months since we boarded a plane out of Chicago, IL and moved here to Guatemala. Our lives have changed dramatically in these past 6 months. People talk about seasons in their lives where they seem to age more than how long the season lasted…that’s how these last 6 months have seemed.

In the last 12 months we both stepped away from full-time jobs, liquidated everything that we owned, said good-bye to the place that we called home for the last 7 years. We left behind the best friends we have ever made and the place that Jenny and I lived many of our ‘firsts.’ And, we did so while Jenny was 6 months pregnant. It has been a wild ride.

So, in celebration of our 6 months away here are 6 things with which we continue to wresle. With most of things, we would appreciate your prayers. We have just begun to learn these things and will continue to l

6 Months Later

earn them over and over and over again.

1. Culture Shock is a Real Thing

I always thought that culture shock was for the people that moved to the desert in Africa, or the jungles of South America. I mean, Guatemala City has a Wal-Mart…how can there be culture shock?

We have been reminded that culture includes much more than food, clothing, music, and traditions. Culture is this sort-of ambiguous substance that shapes how people think and feel. The differences are often very small, but their apparent small-ness doesn’t change their significance.

For example, when a Guatemalan walks into a room, they greet everyone in the room personally. When they are leaving at the end of an event or workday, they say good-bye to everyone around them personally. This is a small thing. However, when I walk into a room and say “Hey, everybody” it’s easy for people to think that I’m rude. Every time that I walk into a room, I make an effort to personally greet everyone. That is just one of a thousand different examples.

The words that we use, the phrases, the jokes, how we process emotions, thoughts, ideas, what we value and don’t value, how we work, how we play, all are nuanced from culture to culture.

2. Doubt is Everywhere

This is one that I never expected. I’m sure most missionaries go through this. After all of the emotion and festivities of moving away and saying good-bye, you wake up one morning in think to yourself “uh oh, what did I just do?” Doubt is everywhere. Did I move into the right house? Did I get the right car? What will people think about me? Am I actually accomplishing anything? Is there actually a long-term plan here? Why am I here in the first place?

It is amazing the amount of doubt that goes into just an ordinary day. I am a very confident and decisive person. But moving to another country will beat the man-made confidence out of just about anyone.[1] Which is a great segue into the next point.

3. Actually Walking By Faith is hard

I don’t like to admit it, but I have rarely actually felt the need to walk in faith. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have the need; I have the need and it is enormous. However, I have never felt so far outside of my own comfort zone that I was grasping for something that made me feel stable or secure.

In most ministry contexts I have too heavily relied on my abilities or strengths. When you move to another country, it seems like your abilities and strengths are neutralized.  

All of a sudden I felt an enormous pressure to trust that God would use my stumbling efforts. It is a pressure that I should have felt a long time ago. My talents or abilities, apart from the grace of God, produce nothing for eternity. When I previously would rely on talents or abilities, it was mostly to give myself a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment. I felt like I had plans, or stability, or vision. But here we wake up every morning and have to trust that God has the ideas for our day already planned out. Walking by faith is painful, but it is a good pain.

4. The Things You Miss are Funny

I miss carpet. I know it seems odd, but carpet has always given me a sense of home. Carpet doesn’t make sense in a Guatemalan climate, so there is no carpet. But, I miss it.

We also miss walgreens. In Guatemala there’s no chain of convenience stores that you can stop into. You have to go to a grocery store.

Jenny misses licorice. Every time someone has come to visit, we make sure that they bring down a HUGE bag of licorice. Also, Jenny misses Chick-fil-a, Chipotle, and Diet Coke. I think you can see the theme.

5. A Sense of Belonging has never felt so important

I always knew what community was. I understood it. I wasn’t able to live in community most of my life, having moved around a lot. Jenny was able to grow up in the same town till college. Both of us were able to settle down in the Chicago-land area for the past few years. We legitimately and fully experienced community. We had people around us that we cared deeply about that cared deeply about us. For one of the first times in my life I didn’t feel like an outsider.

Moving to another country means that you have to start all over. You move to a place where people already have their family traditions, groups of friends, plans for the weekend. We see the importance of feeling like you belong.

Slowly but surely, God is shaping a little community for us. As our director and friend, Steve Dresselhaus says “One of the first things that God says in all of the Bible is ‘it is good for man to be alone.’” We have felt the full weight and truth of that statement.

6. Everything is an Adventure

When you move to another country, absolutely everything is an adventure. Probably the first 7 times we left the house we got lost. We’ve found doctors in another country. We’ve had a baby in another country. We’ve filled out immigration papers, had to get passports for our baby. We’ve made a trip up to Mexico to renew our passports. We’ve had to discover where we will shop, where will we eat, where will we go see a movie. We’ve lived adventure after adventure after adventure.

These 6 months have been tough. We’d be lying if we said that they weren’t. However, God has used these 6 months in amazing ways to chisel away those calcified corners of our hearts that keep us from hearing His voice and trusting in Him. God has used these 6 months to confirm our giftings, strengths, and even our weaknesses. God has used these 6 months to shape and form us into the kind of missionaries that he wants us to be.

As frustrating, and lonely, and challenging that the first 6 months of missionary life can be, they have and will continue to reap a harvest of holiness and formation of our character. We continue to learn that before clay vessels can be filled they must be formed, and sometimes, they first must be shattered.

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[1] Encouragement Tip: When you go to encourage a new missionary, remind them of why they are there in the first place. It may sound silly, but I can assure you that new missionaries wrestle with the “why” questions.

The Wilderness of Doubt

 Maybe every missionary faces it, I’m not sure. Or, maybe, the more terrifying conclusion to my own personal narcissism is that I am just like “every missionary.”

It’s funny how doubt seeps into the day to day. Doubt is a leaky faucet. In the noise of work and disciple-making it can’t be heard. But, when you lay your head down to rest it all starts *drip*……….. *drip*……… *drip*.

Maybe you’ve been there. Making a HUGE, life-altering decision, and wondering weeks or months later if it was the wrong one. A decision that, at the time seemed so certain. Maybe you imagined yourself, as I did, like the person who has built your decision on the rock, only to later feel like you are surrounded by sinking sand.

The comical aspect of decision-making is that, as humans, we only begin to question them when things don’t “feel right.” We have this abstract sense of how the future is going to feel, and when the future doesn’t match that abstract feeling, we panic.

“This isn’t what I had in mind…” “It was supposed to go differently.”

For me, dealing with doubt, has come down to recognizing whose voice is speaking. There are generally three options, the enemy, my own voice, or God. Based on a myriad of theological reasons, my steady conclusion is that the voice of doubt is almost always my own.

I love control. Admit it, you do too.

I have a vision for how things should go. I want to see things happen just the way that I imagine them. God grants me opportunities, daily, to join His work, but I often miss them for blindly following my own meager vision of how it should happen. And really, the difference between God’s plans and my plans are like crumbs versus a royal feast. But, I keep picking up the crumbs, because I think the crumbs are the way to go.

When I go through an entire day and I didn’t seem to find the crumbs, my little vision, I panic. I begin to doubt. “Why am I here?” “What am I really accomplishing?” As if, in some cosmic sense, God is just so blessed by the presence of my paltry vision, and can’t figure out how to go about things on His own.

My voice of doubt has little to do with God’s plan, God’s vision, God’s purpose, and has everything to do with my inability to even execute my tiny, little, crumb-like vision.

But, the beauty of it is this. It is in that moment of desperation and doubt that each of us are invited to God’s table. You and I both have the freedom to leave the doubt and the crumbs behind, and pull up a chair to the feast at God’s table. He’s the one preparing it. Stop looking for the crumbs. Stop fueling your own self-doubt at your own un-realized vision. Rest in the arms of your sovereign creator and sustainer. Believe it or not, He knows what He’s doing.