“Where’s God today?” is one of the most common questions I’m asked after I tell someone that I’m a Christian. The question implies that in a suffering world it’s hard to believe a good God exists. We struggle with this question, but I’m beginning to think that we do so for all the wrong reasons.

The rhetorical question of “Where’s God today?” makes me ask the question “Why isn’t the Church making this clear?” If it’s our duty as Christians to show others who God is by living like Jesus—in love, kindness, and generosity—then the fact that this question is being asked reflects poorly on us, not God. We struggle with answering it because we, as Christian communities, are struggling with our faith.

An example: There is enough wealth in the world to solve world hunger and the water crisis, even in the midst of famines in places like the Horn of Africa.

Worry and anxiety is a driving force in our thought patterns and consequently our spirituality. We’re so concerned with deciphering right from wrong that fear becomes our ally rather than the Spirit, and fear is really the enemy.

I think it’s for these reasons that God’s very mysterious work is often sidelined. Take any round of prayers at a church and you can see this. We all want others to pray about medical conditions, but few stand up and say, “Let me pray over you and ask God to take this away.” I say this as one who is guilty of not responding correctly. Likewise, we present medical problems as something to be prayed about, but rarely have the kind of honesty that even an Alcoholic’s Anonymous group would have: “I’m John and I’m a sinner.

It’s virtually impossible to distinguish between something a believer in Jesus is good at and a spiritual gift. At first this is frustrating, but doesn’t it make sense? If God is one—and we are one with Him through accepting Jesus and His Spirit—why would He not use our “talents” as “gifts”? When you frame the situation as God being the source of all, this pragmatic approach becomes holistic, and the search for gifts in our communities suddenly becomes simple.

Gifts don’t always entail the shockingly miraculous, although that’s certainly part of the picture. The talent you may take for granted is every bit as essential to your church community as the miracle working power of someone else. There is a hierarchy of church offices, for the sake of order, but this doesn’t make anyone more valuable to God’s work than someone else.

We provide for the media empire: Most of us are obsessed with information. In a way, the love of media represents our endless search to find meaning. The news gives us something to obsess over, talk about, and pretend that we can do something about. We look to fill the gap in our beings with information, when only God can fulfill it. In our search to be informed, we’re uninformed. This disconnect is rooted in not just our lack of understanding of self, but also the Spirit. Paul makes a similar point when discussing spiritual gifts.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:1–3 ESV).

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It seems that in small churches we devote an extraordinary amount of energy to church growth—to the point that a few weeks of attendance being down can cause the next leadership meeting to be almost entirely about that. Although we know it’s fundamentally wrong, the media publicity of large communities makes us feel like they’ve somehow won, and prompts us small communities to try to be like them. Capitalism doesn’t help since it measures success by numbers. In focusing so much of our energy on numbers we small communities (albeit unintentionally) turn away from spiritual growth. Yet, most megachurch pastors I know are trying to move their churches towards spiritual growth. The irony is astounding: The small church is trying to be big, while the big church is trying to disciple like its small. Maybe we in the small churches should pick up on the lesson.

This problem, like so many others, is also rooted in the lack of spiritual offices and the lack of focus on spiritual gifts in our communities.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV). 

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“I’ll be leading the children’s ministry this evening.” These magic words brought on all ancient motherly instincts in our church: must rescue the children from the young man with no kids. (Add pauses in between words for drama.) Somehow all the mothers in our small church, for the first time, joined their children rather than stayed for the sermon. This is understandable: I know little to nothing about children. (I wouldn’t want me looking after my own kids, if I had them.) The kids would have had fun, but I’m sure it would come at the high cost of them being full of sugar and gold fish crackers, becoming slightly less respectful, and learning absolutely nothing at all in the process. So I intentionally refrain from children’s ministry, focusing on my primary gifts. I consider it one of the ways I bless the parents of our church.

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Purpose is a very confusing thing. We throw around the word like it’s simple—like everyone understands it—but similar to political words like “change” and marketing words like “believe,” the object of the word is lost in the sentiments. Purpose must be accompanied by direction. It must be directed at not just something, but someone—God. And this is precisely where the use of spiritual gifts becomes skewed.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV).

There is a reason why people dislike the notion that God can lead someone directly (speaking to them) and the idea that God has called people to very particular tasks, using gifts that He chose to give them: it’s something that not only can’t be controlled but can get out of control. We’ve all heard the idea that if the murderer says “God told me to do it,” than the logic behind God still speaking is fraught with problems. This leads to the conclusion that God stopped speaking after the canonized Bible came to be.

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It’s always an awkward moment: the pastor begins talking about sheep and shepherds—hinting at the fact that he’s the shepherd and you’re the stupid sheep that couldn’t find it’s way without him. (I still wish the singular of sheep is shep.) And it only gets stranger as he begins to describe characteristics of sheep, “perhaps the dumbest of all animals,” he says. You’re feeling happier about this guy by the minute. I’ve often wished that pastors would stop using the shepherd analogy, but hey, it’s biblical, and for a reason.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

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One of the little known stories behind my book The Resurrected Servant in Isaiah is that working on the project actually saved my faith. Like many young lads, college was a time filled with belief struggles. For me, it wasn't because I was "coming into my own" or rebelling; it was because I wasn't sure if I believed at all anymore. As the adage goes, "I knew just enough to be dangerous." I was studying manuscripts, the history of how the Bible came together, and the historical Jesus. The combination, along with the high stress of taking Greek and Hebrew simulteounsly, was quite a bit (faith-wise) to bear. And when you're ministering while handling your own faith crisis, you start to get worried.

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Rather than let my quarter-life crisis continue to be imminent as my twenty-fifth looms around the corner, I decided to be proactive.

When a man has a mid-life crisis, he either gets confused or depressed. If confused, he will likely buy a boat, a car, or that big TV he has always wanted. If depressed, he may become somber and run back to his old vice.

When a man has a quarter-life crisis, he either goes crazy or gets stupid. If crazy, he may start setting unreasonable, often selfish, goals. If stupid, he could do one of the countless things that men who aren't ready to grow up yet do--you know the story.

I have a goal setting personality type, which makes being unreasonable a risk for me. I've set way too many ridiculous goals in my life; and yet when I meet them, I rarely celebrate. Instead, I ponder what went wrong along the way or what I'm going to do next. Both of these steps are good things, but they've often hindered positive feelings. This means that no matter how successful my last year was, I always go into my birthday feeling like the year could have been better. Although I'm always thankful for my relationships--with Christ, my wife, family, friends, colleagues, and others--I rarely reflect on that. Instead, I'm stuck thinking about what didn't happen during the last year and what needs to happen in the next. Sometimes it's holy discontent, but other times, it's just unnecessary mourning.

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