Spare Change

Flat Broke

Posted by Bryan

Last Friday, I was blessed by an experience of overwhelming need and profound understanding. Its taken me a few days to decide whether or not to share it with y'all because the whole thing was very personal and affected me deeply. Ultimately, that's why I share it -- because it was very personal and affected me deeply.

To start, yesterday was payday. Sometimes, though, our paychecks get deposited early. At the end of the work day Friday, I checked my balance using the ATM just to see if such an occurance had happened. I had a good notion of what was in the account prior to a deposit, what the deposit would be, and accordingly, what the new total should be if the deposit was in fact there. The whole reason I did this little search was to determine if I should go ahead and put some bills in the mail, or wait until Monday. Please remember, we are a one income family that has committed to this life approach (with no regrets and no plans to change our strategy, just so you know).

So, when I snatched the printed information from the vomituous ATM, I read a number that could only be described as "worst case scenario." The number was higher than I had expected if there had been no deposit, but much lower than it should be if there had been a deposit. The only way my mind could reconcile the inconsistency is that the deposit had been made, but for some reason significant monies had been withdrawn, leaving only meager funds (and by "meager" I mean "woefully inadequate") for the next sixteen days, with bills to pay, food to purchase, and gasoline to acquire.

We are extremely conservative in our expenditures. We have to be. I couldn't even begin to reconcile how this situation had come about. Neither Kelli nor I had purchased anything outside of normal expenses. Kaylyn & Cotter haven't been using the debit card, and Kelsi has promised to stop writing hot checks. I went from zero to hurl 3.8 seconds as I tried to reconcile what was going on.

Kelli and I talked about how we were going to have to live on Top Ramen and Ice Water. I felt horrible. Even to recount the experience now makes me physically queasy. And its more than just the thought of having "to do without." Much more. It's the thought of being inadequate as my family's provider. It's the thought of being a poor witness to others. Literally, the guilt and shame and fear and dread came upon me so quickly that I even now marvel at how quickly my otherwise wonderful day came crashing in.

As I worked through this with my wife, I began to put together a plan to get out from under this burden. I would find additional work. Of course, Kelli offered to take on additional labor, but she acquiesed (and agreed) to my firm belief that this is an unrealistic, nonsolution to the problem. And while I thought I could surely find something to take care of the immediate need, I was suddenly faced with the profound idea that I would have to not only have to find something additional to meet my family's needs -- I would have to find something different.

I was called to the ministry in 1994. I didn't know what it meant then. I was just ignorance on fire and said yes. I didn't know what God wanted from me when I was in seminary, I just knew that's where He wanted me. When God called me to local church ministry, I was terrified, but I just wanted to be there. When He called me to the pastorate, it was the same thing all over again. Then He called me to denominational service, and I couldn't think of anyone less qualified, so I knew God had to be in it, and I gladly uprooted my family from our Colorado comfort so we could be where God had told us to go. Suddenly, without warning or provocation, I for the first time in nearly a decade found myself facing the decision, "Do I need to leave the ministry?"

Listen (or read), I make no exaggeration when I say this was nothing less than a serious crisis of faith for me. I can tell you the functional reality that there is nothing more important to me than meeting the needs of my family. Nothing.

Nothing, that is, except the thought of living my life, for even one day, outside the will of God.

Now, as on Friday, when such a prospect had never before seemed so potentially inevitable, I'm filled with sorrow at the notion.

I am not a cryer...but it makes me want to cry. The thought of not serving God brings a literal ache to my heart, a palpable weight upon my shoulders, and a sense of despair that can't be described with even my fanciest words.

Functional reality has been trumped by spiritual reality.

I would rather be dead than to not serve God.

I've often heard of people in Ministry make the claim, "when the call of God is on your life, you can't do anything else." I've always agreed, shaking my head as though I knew what they were saying.

This experience has shown me that I never knew what they were saying. For almost a decade now I've been in ministry because I wouldn't do anything else. Though I'm now seeing there's a much bigger distance between "couldn't" and "wouldn't" than nineteen letters, God in His mercy had never to this point tested me in this. In fact, there was a time in seminary (when Kelli was great with Kaylyn, to be biblical), when God absolutely forbade me to leave ministry despite my persistent, earnest effort to do so in order to provide for the family.

Now, nearly 10 years later, God had opened the gate to the world to freely let me walk out. And I will not. Because I cannot.

God has taken a minor financial emergency to teach me a fresh lesson what it means to be a bondservant. I have never more felt as I do now, like the freed slave who instead chooses to take the awl through the earlobe because I just want to remain in the Master's service. I don't pretend to claim that I fully understand it, because I am sure greater lessons, greater tests still await.

I'm learning important faith lessons through this:

• The confidence I have placed in my flesh is folly indeed. We later found out that what had happened was the grocery store had billed our account four times for one large expense, creating a triple deficit. They corrected the error themselves without our intervention. Though I thought I have the strength of a mighty man of valor, a simple computer error brought me to a point of alarm


• God, not I, is the provider of me and my family. He has never let us down. And he isn't now. To create my own prosperity would say more about what I believe about God than what i really estimate of myself.


• God has given me a great joy for what I do. I don't know how long I'll be here in Georgia. But I do know that wherever I am, I will be serving God and other people. To not do this would be to try to breathe without oxygen.

As I ever grow in my understanding, I thank God in Jesus for Paul's profession, "For me, to live is Christ."

March 16, 2004 5:31 PM