All Things Work Together for Good

“God’s Spirit is right along­side help­ing us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t mat­ter. He does our pray­ing in and for us, mak­ing prayer out of our word­less sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far bet­ter than we know our­selves, knows our preg­nant con­di­tion, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into some­thing good.”

Romans 8:26b-28

What is one thing that hap­pened in your life that ini­tially may have been a bad or painful sit­u­a­tion that you saw God work together for good?

Tena­cious.

If I were asked to describe myself using only one word, I think “tena­cious” would be among the words from which I would be com­pelled to pick. Among the word’s var­i­ous def­i­n­i­tions, this is the most applic­a­ble: “Hold­ing together; cohe­sive; not eas­ily pulled asun­der; tough.”

Until I left orga­nized reli­gion in Jan­u­ary 2007, I was a church mem­ber and musi­cian for my entire life. I spent many, many hours each and every week in church. The time spent in Sun­day morn­ing wor­ship ser­vices was merely the prover­bial drop in the bucket. I spent thou­sands of hours per year attend­ing Bible stud­ies, meet­ings, and rehearsals, not to men­tion pro­vid­ing other ser­vices such as design­ing, cre­at­ing, and main­tain­ing the church’s web­site, edit­ing the weekly church bul­letins and monthly newslet­ters, etc.

Of course, such a heavy com­mit­ment of time and tal­ent also brings a lot of social­iza­tion with other mem­bers of the church, only a few of whom I counted then (or now) as gen­uine friends.

When I first left the insti­tu­tional church, I had absolutely no doubt that I was fol­low­ing the Holy Spirit’s lead. In fact, because I am so tena­cious, I should have left at least three years before I actu­ally walked out the door and, on that evening, the Holy Spirit all but picked up my bags and pulled me by the hair out the back door of the building.

At the time, I was very hurt, upset, and dis­ap­pointed. I had been manip­u­lated and lied to by the pas­tor, and, to this day, most mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion do not know the truth about what hap­pened or why I really left. I have heard a few of the rumors that cir­cu­lated, none of which — not sur­pris­ingly — had any rela­tion­ship to real­ity. I felt beat up, as though I had been run over by a truck.

I also felt enor­mous relief. And free­dom. And then I won­dered how I had man­aged to sur­vive it all. With each pass­ing day, as I felt bet­ter and bet­ter about myself and my life out­side the church, I came to under­stand just how badly beaten down I had been … for such a long time. I hadn’t even real­ized it. I had spent years tena­ciously try­ing to make an unwork­able, unten­able sit­u­a­tion into a success.

I had unwit­tingly spent years dis­avow­ing and ignor­ing a phi­los­o­phy with with I was famil­iar and in which I claimed to believe. I had been reject­ing the prin­ci­ples set forth in the Seren­ity Prayer:

God grant me the seren­ity
to accept the things I can­not change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wis­dom to know the difference.

Liv­ing one day at a time;
Enjoy­ing one moment at a time;
Accept­ing hard­ships as the path­way to peace;
Tak­ing, as He did, this sin­ful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trust­ing that He will make all things right
if I sur­ren­der to His Will;
That I may be rea­son­ably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
For­ever in the next.
Amen.

Rein­hold Niebuhr

My tenac­ity has often been my sal­va­tion. And, nearly as often, my undo­ing. Because I am not a quit­ter, I con­stantly need to remind myself that the Seren­ity Prayer is a blue­print for success.

But even when I for­got that, the Holy Spirit did not. Just as Romans 8 teaches us, my “word­less sighs” and my “aching groans” did not go unno­ticed, even when I could not even artic­u­late their ori­gins or mean­ings. The Holy Spirit knew me “far bet­ter than” I knew myself, knew my “preg­nant con­di­tion, and [kept me] present before [the Divine Cre­ator].” And in the end, all things worked together for good.

I have never been hap­pier than since I walked away from the insti­tu­tional church. I have never had a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with the Divine Cre­ator. I have never been as focused on my spir­i­tual life as since I got away from the con­fines of orga­nized reli­gion. I have never felt as free to wor­ship as since I stopped going into a build­ing pur­port­edly designed for wor­ship … and began wor­ship­ing wher­ever and when­ever the Spirit inspires me to offer praise and thanksgiving.

And since that time, I have been more mind­ful of the tenets of the Seren­ity Prayer, ask­ing con­stantly for the wis­dom to dis­cern between sit­u­a­tions where my gift of tenac­ity will serve me well and those where my tenac­ity is an imped­i­ment to my own spir­i­tual devel­op­ment. That too is an exam­ple of how every detail in my life of love for the Divine Cre­ator is worked into some­thing good.

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