Today I officially put in my notice. Effective today, no thirty day notice, no two week notice…today is the day.I am done.
Done with what, you ask? Read on.
Does the title surprise you? For some people in my life, it may not. Some people know me as a quitter.
When I started community college, my dad told me he would not help pay for my schooling because “you quit everything you start after about 2 weeks”. It’s funny that my dad told me this, because a lot of this same behavior was exhibited in his own life.
As I look back over my life, and as angry as his words made me, I realize he was right. There are many instances that come to mind over the years that I can think of where I started something with great excitement, jumping in with both feet.
And shortly thereafter, I was done. The excitement was gone.
And I quit.
I can think of a lot of reasons this happened - we all get excited about things, and we want to be a part of things. But when something goes wrong or other people don’t get as excited as we do, the wind goes out from our sails and we’re done.
Most people think I have a strong personality, but I really don’t. I am hard headed and stubborn, but when confrontation arrives, I leave. Therefore, when I am confronted with strong personalities, I have a hard time expressing my opinion and standing my ground.
So it’s easier to quit.
The crazy thing is that this behavior continued after I got saved and began working in the church. There were some of the same reasons involved: strong personalities, confrontation, etc. But in church, people have something else they use (and misuse): Scripture and church authority.
If you are not Scripturally sound, some people will use Scripture and the great statement of: “I prayed about this and I think this is what God wants you to do/don’t do”.
Ahhhh….the God guilt. But this kind of guilt doesn’t come from God. It comes from people who (usually have strong personalities and seem very “holy”) are trying to be the Holy Spirit to those they deem in need of their spiritual guidance.
I have been a victim of this, and I have done this to others.
There are many examples I can use from just my church experience, and I know many others who have experienced the same thing. The one instance I would like to share today is this:
My first few years as a new Christian, I was in one of those situations where I had three very strong personalities take me on as their “personal project”. They had been Christians longer than me, so I assumed they were right. I never questioned anything they told me about myself. I pretty much let them control me, and the words “church discipline” were thrown around a lot ( don‘t beat me up for this statement. I know there is such a thing as church discipline and that it needs to be exercised in certain situations according to Scripture, but it should not be used as a scare tactic).
Now don’t get me wrong, I had some serious anger issues and I was a very mean person. But sometimes I think they realized this too much and pushed my buttons on purpose. When I acted on my anger, I would get the “See, there she goes again, she hasn’t changed at all”. But my desire for friends and my fear of church discipline allowed me to continue in this unhealthy pattern.
Anytime I was sad or depressed, or shared out loud some of my fears about life or decisions I needed to make, I was told I didn’t have enough faith. Nothing that I did was right.
It got to the point where I was even accused by several church members (through gossip and backbiting) of something terrible concerning me and another church member that really broke my heart. Then it got to the point that if I went to church and spoke to that person, I was talking to them too much; if I didn’t speak to that person, I was being obstinate and mean.
It got to a place where I couldn’t win.
During this time, I also began having some issues with my job, and I really felt that God was telling me to resign because He had something better for me in store that I needed to be ready for. I knew He was telling me to jump and when He was ready for me to land, He would have the ground prepared.
I got excited! If I really take this leap, surely they will see that I have faith in God and His plan for me!
I told two of these three people in my life that I stepped out in faith and resigned and was waiting on God to show me my next steps. After all, faith was what I didn’t have enough of, right?
Both of them responded like this:
“You’re lying. You got fired didn’t you?”
Geezy pete, really?
3 months later, God rewarded my leap of faith with a great new job at a Christian company that not only allowed me to share my faith at work, but went above and beyond to help me during my illness in 2012. I was also during this employment that I had the counsel of a man who encouraged me to seek God’s face, and he listened to me.
I began pulling away from these folks at church. There were lots of other instances involved that I won’t go into, but it came down to me being told to come in for a meeting with the pastor and another church leader or I would be brought up on church discipline.
The very thing I had feared so long…
I prayed for God to give me strength and the words to say to be honoring to Him during this meeting. And He did. I confessed where I was wrong, but I also defended myself Scripturally and in a way that was God honoring. I didn’t get angry. I just said what I had to say.
And I let them know I would be looking for another church.
To some people, I quit again. This pastor even told me that if I wanted to go to another church to go ahead, because someone had told him when I joined this church that I was just a “church-hopper” anyway. The sad thing is that he relied on gossip and started naming churches that this person told him that I had supposedly been to that I had never set foot in.
This time, I quit for the right reasons. I felt like God had been telling me to move for awhile, but I was scared of what people would say.
I wasn’t scared anymore. This was an unhealthy environment spiritually and I needed to go somewhere that would allow me to seek God. To find the true Jesus.
This journey continues today…I am still seeking that place that God wants me to be, and I won’t make any hasty decisions this time. I will seek where He wants me to serve.
So, what am I quitting?
Over the past few years, God has, through many different circumstances, been trying to get me to depend fully on Him instead of on myself and other people, instead of on a salary and a job, and things, and stuff.
I have been gradually doing this…letting go a little at a time.
But today, I officially quit. I am tired of trying to do God’s job for Him.
So I resign.
I am at the point in my life where I have no job, no insurance, no car, no significant worldly possessions, no income, and a health status that has declined a lot in the past year and a half.
What I do have, I am completely committing to Him.
My life, my all.
Adrian Rogers tells the story of a pastor who started at a new church and a lady came up to him on his first day and said, “Pastor, you’re gonna have a hard time pleasing all 300 of us here at this church”. The Pastor replied, “I have no interest in pleasing any of you. There is only One I must please, and that is Jesus”.
I say Amen to that.
Are you ready to quit?
