Imagine yourself going to the castle of the King.

As you pass through the courtyard and on to the throne room you are surrounded by the correct vocabulary, posture, propriety, status, titles, standards, dress codes, customs, traditions, positions, ceremony, religions and all the other things surrounding a trip to visit the King.

Everyone is stiff and serious and you feel really out of place.  As you enter the throne room passing through what seems to be the required customs of entering the King’s presence you are afraid, and wonder if it was a bad idea to come here at all.

After you bow to the King, as you are raising your head you catch eyes with the King and notice He is smiling, and he winks at you.

Last month I took a retreat day to the mountains and found a place very close to the top to sit and pray. I noticed an opening between the trees that provided a view of multiple mountain ranges and I felt God leading me to consider the next chapter in my life. It was as if the mountain behind me was where I had been, and the mountain I was on was where I am, and God had opened up just a glimpse of the mountain ranges to come. There was one very close, close enough to see trees and details, then a further range, another beyond that, and still another much further in the distance that I could only see as blue and distant. God didn’t reveal anything specific about the future, but I stood and dreamed about each range, and especially the farthest… what lies ahead… 20, 30 years from now?

My concluding thought was that I am going into a new chapter of my life. Closing the last, and starting the next. Or even just adding a new color to the cover page of my life. Today I begin my job as a graphic design and communications coordinator at Pantano Christian Church. If you know me, you know this is a perfect job for me. It will be a regular job, full-time position and includes all the communications for the church. Julie and I knew that I would need to get a job for a couple months now - but it’s finally becoming a reality.

I will only be able to put part time hours in to the campus ministry, which equal to the amount of support we have coming in, and probably best to require more student involvement. As a ministry we will have to cut back and really focus on raising awareness, prayer and funds if we want it to be long-term.

The moral of the story: Most of the time what hurts now, will make the future better. Wade Gardener (my regional director with Impact) and I were discussing this and he pointed out that most things that feel good now hurt later. So I found myself worshiping. Like you read so many times in Scripture -”and he worshipped God.” It shows up all over the place, and it’s always vague on the details.

In my life, right now, that is what is being written about me… “and then he worshipped God.”