or most of us, life got very strange in mid March, as the COVID-19 quarantines began. Offices closed, stay-at-home orders started, and what we were initially told were 14 day limitations to “flatten the curve” turned into nearly two months of little or limited activity.

For some the challenge was not too great at first. An enforced break from the work environment was appreciated. But for others, it meant having to jump into a changed world with little preparation. Teachers and professors discovered just how much or little they knew about tech, and many of us probably wish we had stock in Zoom before the pandemic, because we all had to get used to it to an extreme degree.

For me, the change was primarily the loss of face-to-face interaction with and access to many people, but I continued to have “conversations” and “meetings” through media, as well as all of the normal routines of preaching, teaching, counseling, and so on. It was not until this most recent change in our lives occasioned by my departure from my pastoral position that I began to experience what many others, including my wife, had been dealing with.

For extroverted “doers” like us, extended days of not interacting with friends and co-workers personally is a shock to the system. For me, the regular sit-down meetings with individual staff members, planning meetings, counseling or accountability meetings with others, collaboration on sermons, and the hours of focused study toward preaching were not drudgery, they were life-giving activity that have, by and large, marked my weeks for 40 years.

Now, life looks very different. As all of us know, “different” isn’t bad for us in many cases. We currently have the blessing of living with and assisting my aging parents in a time of growing need. Discovering how to do that well is a process we are engaged in and realizing there is a learning curve to it.

We are near enough to see our son and his wife and my extended family regularly. That is something we have not had available to us since I left home or since our children did. So many of our Ohio friends would wonder how we did without family around, and this taste of what we missed is sweet.

There are a number of friends from former days that we are in the process of reacquainting ourselves with here (it’s amazing how many people from other parts of our life history have found themselves in north Texas). For those of you here reading this who haven’t heard from us, we are working on it, but don’t hesitate to let us know you’re here if you haven’t already!

Life has gotten “smaller” for us in this time. It is smaller in its focus, its contacts, and its responsibilities. Kathy refers to it as being “quieter”–in that we have less that we hear from people, less that we have to say or share in an ongoing way, and more time that we can hear from others. That listening can be through conversations, but also listening as we read good books and literature, and of course primarily listening to God through his Word. That is an obvious benefit of this moment.

But as life has changed in these ways, some of the changes for us feel like (and in many cases are) losses. My interactions with people have shrunk even below COVID restrictions, for the simple reason that I’m not around them, and many of the reasons that kept us in regular contact aren’t there anymore. My circle of regular contacts has gotten much smaller, and that is most keenly felt in terms of the people who know me well outside of family.

My daily schedule has little urgency in it right now. I haven’t really figured out a way to use my Full Focus Planner® well in this season of life. I had so many days that were just blank pages I decided to set it aside. Using my Google calendar is enough for now. There aren’t many appointments to keep or deadlines to meet. I have nothing I must produce or else fail in my assigned roles. My annual goals were largely built around matters that no longer are under my direction or control. The freedom of my time allows “rapid response” to requests and extended time in devotional time and prayer, and also reading. But as a doer, it’s hard to escape the sense I’m forgetting something to accomplish.

My “job” right now, if it could be called that, is to do what I can to move forward toward a next ministry assignment. But that is a bit more complex than you might think (or maybe you all know that and I’m the last one to figure it out). It is much more than updating (really re-creating) a resumé, discovering the myriad of job search sites for churches and ministries, and reaching out to people I know who might know of positions or possibilities.

There is also significant and ultimately greater work to do within. Changes have emotional and spiritual components as well as the obvious geographical and economic ones. I have been thinking about what those inner factors involve, and I’ve come up with three aspects to start with. Getting myself to the point where forward movement can take place requires “letting go,” “laying down,” and “looking up” (sermon prep still takes over, even in writing, thus the three alliterated points). All three are what one writer called “heart work.” It is the kind of work that I think all of us may, from time to time, need to undertake. Have you been hurt, or suffered a significant loss, or been wronged by others, or in some way had part (or all) of your life seem to go off the tracks? Our theology assures us of God’s control and care, but we have some work to do to live out what we believe by means of what D. A. Carson labeled “grace driven effort.” In fact, let me invite you to join me in thinking about these three tasks that are an important part of my life right now.

“Letting go” is the hard work of releasing the desire to be defensive, protective, or self-justifying about circumstances that have transpired. It is resisting the temptation to replay events and rehearse and rehash offenses, making oneself a martyr as well as the star of a tragedy. Even when we believe we have been wronged, we are not perfect nor perfectly innocent, and failure to let go of our self-protective and self-justifying tendencies will keep us from both learning where we need to repent and change ourselves, and where we must forgive others. Mark it down–failure to let go of situations and offenses will plant the root of bitterness in our hearts that the Bible warns against.

I have been blessed to have friends who have gone through hard things reach out and share their approaches to this part of heart work. I hope you have some “go to” people or sources for this as well if you are struggling with what you believe are wrongs done to you or losses inflicted upon you. One good friend’s hard but meaningful advice: pray regularly for those that you see as responsible for your pain or loss–and pray for the very blessings on them that you would pray for your friends and family. My friend said at first it feels like you are just saying words, but God turned it into a true seeking of their welfare. He said that most of those who hurt us will never acknowledge it, and some believe they were doing “the Lord’s work” in their actions, but don’t let their lack of ownership of fault deter you from releasing your offense to the Lord and replacing it with grace. Kathy and I have both embraced this practice daily. And we’ve read some books that have aided us in thinking forgiveness through, and the willingness to embrace pain as God’s tool, not just the result of evil done by others or myself.

“Laying down” is recognizing that the plans and goals you thought were yours to pursue are yours no longer. It is accepting that God has changed plans, closed doors, or ended works that you were convinced had more time ahead. As Christians, we have probably prayed about our desires and plans and then tried to pursue them faithfully according to what we believed God had for us. Having those plans uprooted and overturned can be confusing and disorienting, especially when we were so certain of the roles we were to play and what we would be doing in the near or distant future. The most natural reactions will be to try to hold on to what has been so dear, and then to look at our recently emptied hands and weep. Plans for ministry, mentoring relationships, strategic steps to be taken, transitions to plan for–one week they were in place and the next our part in them had ended. Not to mention our identity and reputation that both take a hit when circumstances go against us.

But our plans are always to be written “in pencil”–as James says, we should never lose sight of the fact that plans are laid “if the Lord wills,” and sometimes his will includes changes we weren’t anticipating. Our certainty that things will stay “as they are” in our obedience and service is illusory and can become an idol. Walking in obedience when we don’t know where we are going or what we are doing next can expose our over-reliance on “knowing” what God has ahead for us. In my case, I had a clear picture of what the years ahead would involve in service to the Lord Jesus–the “how,” what”, and “where” were clear. Now none of that is part of my path, and the horizon is hazy. But as my mentor and friend, Dr. Jim Cook, said as we left our home in California for our next calling 15 years ago, God redeploys his servants where they are needed, and he doesn’t need to seek anyone’s permission to do so. And so, we lay down our plans and dreams, knowing he will take care of his people according to his better (if not always understandable to us) plans. We relinquish them in faith, even while having to accept the loss of all the direction and satisfaction they gave.

And what about identity and reputation? For years I’ve urged others not to see themselves as the sum of career and accomplishments, but in terms of how God has seen us and the relationships to which we are committed. Those don’t change when you change or lose a position. And reputation is one of those matters you never really have control of, except before the Lord’s eyes anyway. Laying these down is really just recognizing that any concerns we have might be because we have the wrong audience in mind.

And we then have to do the work of “looking up.” I don’t say simply “looking ahead,” because right now what is ahead is completely unknown to us. Looking ahead without looking up first is both presumptuous and discouraging. It’s presumptuous because, just as we could not foresee what we would be called upon to lay down, we cannot see what is ahead for us until the Lord chooses to reveal it. On our own only human wisdom will prevail, and that’s never a good idea. It can be discouraging because I am so conditioned to being at work for God that I can be tempted to believe that when I don’t have something to do for him, I have no value to him.

I often have told people that God wants to make us what we need to be before he gives us the work we are to do. He wants to prioritize who we are in Christ before turning to what we do for Christ. That is the reality I must embrace for myself right now. There is work he wants to do in me that I have the freedom to pursue.

And we await the Lord’s next orders, even as we fulfill the roles we can in what we perceive as the time “in between.” Actually, as I described above, we have important work to do–caring for my parents, and helping as best we can Kathy’s siblings in dealing with her dad’s final illness (barring a miracle). One of my friends told me that this work is probably more God-honoring and valuable than a lot of tasks that consumed days of professional ministry. That is a profound (and humbling) truth.

Are you dealing with (or still dealing with) loss or hurt of this kind? Have other Christians or the church been a source of your pain? Has your future become cloudy, and your ability to find meaning in the present been stifled? I invite you to join me in this time of learning how to let go, lay down, and look up. It’s not easy, and I don’t even know where it will lead. But I guess that is where faithfully following the God who does know needs to be enough.