A few days ago, this photo popped up in my memories on Facebook.

It’s a photo from two years ago at a small group leader training at Pantano Christian Church in Tucson. You see, this was right when the church I planted, Revolution, and Pantano merged. There was so much hope, so much expectation in this photo. This was right at the beginning of what I thought would be a movement of churches around the city of Tucson, all the campuses that would be started because of this one decision, all that God would do through it. This was the beginning of our next chapter in Tucson.

There is so much hope, dreaming and expectation wrapped up in this photo. 

I didn’t know at the time, but now know, this photo was the beginning of the most challenging 18 months of ministry I have ever had. This was the beginning of some incredibly dark nights, long walks in the desert, a lot of shouting and frustration with God, and many hurts. 

It was also the beginning of what would eventually lead to a massive change in my life. 

I texted this photo to a mentor when it popped up, and he asked me, “If you could go back two years, what would you tell yourself?”

If God would’ve told me on that night, that night when I was so excited and full of hope, “Josh, what you don’t know is in 2 years you will be on the other coast. All the dreams you have in your heart won’t come true here. You are about to have the hardest 18 months of your life.” Would I go through with it?

I don’t know. I know I wouldn’t want to, that’s for sure. But looking back, I know I needed to walk this road. 

First off, I’m glad God doesn’t do that. Even though I often wish he would tell me where things end up, I’m happy he takes us one step at a time. 

Looking back, I’m amazed at what God brought us through. 

Over the last two years, I learned things about myself that I needed to know. Katie and I grew closer together in our prayer life as we struggled through what God had for us next. I learned a lot about leadership, emotional health, trust, and the importance of character. I learned things about the church, the leadership gifts and passions I have, and the things I want to accomplish.

I learned a lot about what matters in life and what makes you happy at the end of the day. 

I think dreams and goals still matter, but we need to be prepared for them to be dashed and not come true. 

I learned that a lot could happen in two years. Two years ago, I didn’t know that we would leave Tucson, even though it was time. I didn’t know that we would walk away from the life we had there. I didn’t know that the team of people I worked with for years would disperse and start new things or move to places they dreamed of being. No matter how hard the moment is right now that you find yourself in, it will end, the day will end, the page will turn. 

I learned that God sends people into our lives at the moment we need them. What you don’t see in this picture is that a few months before this, we met a couple, Todd and Karen, that God would use in powerful ways to help us through this season. I was beginning to get to know Todd at this point, but our relationship would deepen, and God would use him to speak truth to me, to challenge me, and they loved Katie and me (and our kids) so well over this last season. 

Sitting there in this meeting, I wasn’t praying for any of those things. I wasn’t praying for God to take me deeper; I wasn’t praying for God to move us; I wasn’t praying for God to end relationships, seasons, or situations. I wasn’t praying for any of the things God was about to do. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t answer my prayers. He did, and is answering them, but he took me on a different path to get there. 

Recently, someone here in Massachusetts commented, “I wished things would’ve gone faster in our search process.” While I understand that feeling when you are searching for a pastor and I appreciate that while searching for a job. The reality is, if things had gone faster in Massachusetts, we maybe wouldn’t have applied because we weren’t ready. I applied for the job in Massachusetts the week that I found out I wasn’t staying at Pantano. It struck me; God opens doors at the right moment. Right as we were trying to figure out what was next, I got a call from a search firm and he said, “Would you be interested in talking with a church in New England?” 

The last learning, at least that I’m sharing now, God is with us in the hope-filled mountaintop and the low, dark valley. God was there that night of the group leader training, a night filled with enormous possibility, and he was there in the darkest moments of 2020 and 2021. 

Back to my mentor’s question. What advice would I give myself? I’d tell myself, keep trusting God. No matter how dark it gets, keep walking, keep trusting. You need to go through everything you’re going through to get to where God wants you. And…don’t forget the lessons you learn in the next 2 years.

At some point in your spiritual journey, you find yourself walking through the painful experience of the silence of God. It can be for many reasons, but it can be hurtful and disillusioning when it happens.

In Psalm 13, David gives voice to what many of us experience:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long will I store up anxious concerns[a] within me,

agony in my mind every day?

How long will my enemy dominate me?

3 Consider me and answer, Lord my God.

Restore brightness to my eyes;

otherwise, I will sleep in death.

4 My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,”

and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in your faithful love;

my heart will rejoice in your deliverance.

6 I will sing to the Lord

because he has treated me generously.

How do you get to the place David did in Psalm 13 and respond to the silence of God? 

Philip Yancey, in his book Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? gives some helpful steps on how to handle the silence of God or what seems like unanswered prayer:

Do I have any sins to confess? So many times, our distance from God is because of unconfessed sin. When we struggle to move forward in relationships, when we struggle to hear God, to find freedom in our lives, it is our sin we are carrying around. We haven’t let go of the bitterness, people we still blame, situations we replay in our minds, and secrets we keep hidden.

What are my motives for prayer? Many times we pray to get something, to become rich, to have an easier life. We want God on our terms, and when this happens, we miss God. This is why God feels distant, we aren’t looking for God; we are looking for a version of God we’ve created.

In this, are you listening to God or just talking to God? Our prayer life is often one way, me just telling God what I want, what I need, what he can do. I’m not asking him questions; I’m not listening to him.

Another one is I’ll have people say, “I asked God about ______ “(and in the blank is always something God has already told us the answer to in the Bible), but he didn’t answer. Of course not; he’s already given you an answer. Why does he need to tell you again?

Am I pursuing results rather than closeness with God? I said earlier that the writers of Scripture spend little time answering why suffering happens and more time on what suffering, pain, and silence produce in us. It produces perseverance, character, patience, hope, joy, and so on.

We experience God and grow close to him while we wait. If God answered everything right away when we asked, what kind of faith and trust would we need?

I would say we get closer the longer we are waiting, not always.

Is God preparing me for something? Often God is using our spiritual dryness for something in the future. I read once that a vintner refuses to irrigate his vines because the stress caused by occasional drought produces the best, most tasty grapes. Seasons of dryness make the roots run deep, strengthening the vine for whatever the future holds.

Just like the example of a vintner, the best wine takes time. It waits.

I’ve seen many times in my life that God hasn’t answered my prayers because I am not ready.

Pray with others. This is the power of community groups, praying together, and sharing evidence of God’s grace. When you sit with your group and share how you have seen God work in your life. When you can’t think of any, but the person next to you shares several, yes, you will at first get mad. Why isn’t God moving in my life like he is in yours? Why isn’t God answering my prayers? But you will also start to see, even when you can’t see God at work in your life, he is at work.

Not only that, sometimes you need someone else to have faith for you; sometimes you need someone else to pray for you because you can’t muster the words.

Control.

It is something we all like to have, something we all want to feel we have, and yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we have very little of it.

We can’t control the stock market, our retirement, or our finances. We can’t stop things from breaking or falling apart. We can’t control our friends, our spouse, our kids, or our parents. We can’t control our health, getting sick, something breaking in our bodies, or even stop the process of getting older.

Now, in all of those things, there are things we can control.

We can fight against it and try to keep controlling things.

Which is what a lot of us do. I do it. I like control.

We can throw our hands up in the air and say, “What’s the point?” and give up. Unfortunately, some of us do this as well.

It is a funny thing to think that on the other side of releasing control is hope. That if we let go, we can find joy. It feels backward because we believe that hope and joy are found in control. 

But what if hope and joy are found in surrender?  

As I said on Sunday, we can let go of control when we surrender.

But how? And does it lead us to the life we want and hope for?

So, from one control freak (me) to another (maybe), here are some questions I’ve asked myself along the way to lead to surrender:

1. What am I hoping for in control? What does control get me in this situation? Now, if you are like me, you are thinking, I control things because I care. And that is true. But we still need to ask these questions. Not all control is bad, but most of the control we exert in our lives lacks trust in God.

And at the crux of control and surrender is the question, can I trust God? And it is an important question. Do I believe that God cares about these things and these people as much as I do? Do I believe that God cares about me and my world as much as I do?

The answer is He does, but He cares about them in slightly different ways than we often do. 

But back to the original question: When we exert control, what do we get? What do we hope for?

Often, we hope for comfort and a sense of peace when we control things, but that often backfires on us.

2. What do I control in this situation? Really? As we think about control and what we hope to gain from control, it is essential to step back and ask, “what do I control in this situation? Really?” The reason I like to throw the word really on end is that we can come up with all kinds of things, but that last question forces us to say, do you actually have control there?

Take any situation in your life right now that feels out of control. What control do you have? 

The answer is some. You and I exert influence in all kinds of places that we often underestimate. If you’re a parent, you have a lot of influence on your child’s life. The same is true with finances, your health, and other vital relationships. Although you and I have control, it might be different than we expect. So it is crucial to know where we have control and what control we have. 

So that we can release the control we don’t have, and surrender.

3. What would happen if I release control? In many ways, it is the surrender question; the letting go question.

For many of us, this is also the worst-case scenario question. 

In the areas of your life where you exert control, what would happen if you surrendered those people, situations, and struggles to God? What if you let go?

It isn’t easy, but we know that God is at work through us and in us (Philippians 2:13), and that he will bring that work to completion (Philippians 1:6). That is why we can release control and surrender to God, and in that surrender, we find hope and joy.