The Old Testament book of Ezra tells the story of a prophet by the same name who leads a group of exiles back to their homeland.

In his own words: “I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. … Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, ‘The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.’ So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.”

I love the raw honesty, the fearful yet active faith. The story is incredibly simple yet unfathomably deep. The king had already given Ezra an immense amount of wealth and almost certainly would have provided protection, but Ezra had put God on the line and wouldn’t jeopardize His reputation. So they fasted and implored God, and He listened to their entreaty.

The 50th day after Easter is called Pentecost. The 10 days leading up to Pentecost make up the Pentecost season, marking the period between Jesus’ ascension into Heaven and the day when Jesus’ followers received the Holy Spirit.

We’re approaching the day of Pentecost and are in the middle of a sermon series called “Miracles” here at NCC, so it seemed appropriate that we pray that God would move in a powerful way, much as he did at the first Pentecost.

Consequently, we are doing a 10 day fast, praying and believing that God will do great things.

I’ve decided to fast a few things, each symbolic of the things I’m believing God for.

I’ve given up alcohol as I pray for my brother’s health. He’s had some stomach problems for a while now. I’m praying for total healing. (Alcohol = not super-great for your stomach)

I’ve given up coffee as I continue to pray and believe for another place in the marketplace for NCC. (Coffee = something I drink at work)

I’ve put myself on a strict diabetic-friendly diet as I pray that God would heal me of diabetes. Note that I manage my diabetes well, but I usually do this through extra insulin rather than proper diet.

I’ve given up searching for a home as I pray and trust God that He will provide the right place. This is perhaps the most difficult fast I’ve ever done. There’s always the idea that something great could come on the market and disappear during the 10 days I’ve stopped looking.

There you have it. There are a few other things, but they are either overly-personal or not mine to share publicly.

If you’re interested in doing a Pentecost fast, it’s not too late. We’re only a day-and-a-half in. Join us in fasting and believing that God will glorify himself through miracles that only He can do.

God acts when His people have faith, and sometimes we have to act on that faith.

I’m believing that God will provide NCC with a new building where we can serve Him, and earlier today Rachel and I took a step of faith and made a small donation to help pay for the property that NCC wants to buy. It wasn’t much, but it was an expression of faith that God will come through.

Why did we do it? Why did we do it today? Because I’m believing that this will happen tomorrow. Again, I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong. God could have totally different plans, but tomorrow I finish seven days of circling and praying for that property, and just like he did at Jericho, I believe that on the seventh day, God will move.

Why am I writing this post? I’ll look foolish if it doesn’t happen tomorrow, and even more foolish if it doesn’t happen at all. But that doesn’t matter. It only matters that God is glorified. It’s also my way of (reverently, respectfully, and humbly) putting God on the spot. I’ve done what I believe He’s asked me to do, and now I’m believing that He will do his part.

A few weeks ago I finished reading Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus with a group of guys from my church. The premise of the book is that we need to seize our divine moments, to grab hold of the opportunities that God puts in our path and to make opportunities when they are not readily apparent. The primary illustration in the book comes from 1 Samuel 14. In this chapter Samuel explains how Jonathan, the son of the king of Israel, and his armor bearer climbed up a cliff (or mountain, hill, etc.) to reach a Philistine army outpost. Jonathan and his armor bearer killed twenty Philistines and started a chain of events in which the Israelite army routed the Philistines.

What makes this story so interesting are the circumstances under which Jonathan decided to act. So often we want God to speak in a booming voice, giving us explicit instructions about what we are supposed to do next, but God doesn’t always work that way. In 1 Samuel 14:6, Jonathan says to his armor bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.” He didn’t have an assurance from God that everything would be okay. God didn’t give him a 10 point battle plan. Jonathan did what he believed was right, and God honored his faith and his action.

We see a similar story in Judges 6 and 7. God told Gideon that Gideon would save Israel from the Midianites, and so Gideon went to fight the Midianites with an army of 32,000 men. But God said that Gideon had too many and sent 22,000 of them home. God said that there were still too many and left Gideon with a mere 300 men…

…and no plan.

While had God very clearly told Gideon that he would conquer the Midianites, God didn’t spell it out. He simply told Gideon to go fight and then took away 99% his fighting force. Gideon had only 300 men left, and we have no record of God telling him how to defeat the Midianites with such a small complement. Gideon had to forge ahead into battle, trusting that God would fulfill his word. While the Israelite army surrounded the Midianite camp and blew trumpets and broke jars, God caused the men in the Midianite army to turn on one another, delivering the army into Gideon’s hands.

What has God told you to do? Is there something that He’s laid on your heart? Has God given you a passion for AIDS victims, for underprivileged children living in the ghetto, for the homeless, for prisoners, for victims of war, for battered women, for the fatherless? Are you waiting for God to tell you exactly what to do next before doing anything at all? Have you been sitting on this passion for years without taking any action? Perhaps God isn’t going to tell you what the next step is. He might not spell it all out for you.

Even if you don’t feel like there’s any one particular thing that God wants from you, there are plenty of things that He has already told us to do: feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, care for widows and orphans, preach the Gospel. I don’t think God is going to get mad at us for doing the things that He has already commanded. If you start a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a prison ministry that changes the lives of many, I have a hard time picturing God coming down on your head because you missed His “true calling” for your life.

Perhaps the opportunities that you need to seize are not (on the surface, anyway) so lofty as these. If God has given you a passion for art or music or writing or whatever else, don’t let that passion go to waste. Glorify God by being a good steward of the skills and talents he has given you, don’t simply let them rot away in the ground.

Chasing daylight is risky. You run the risk of failure. We’re not going to succeed (by our definition of the term anyway) every time we step out in faith. Even when God specifically asks something of us, there’s no guarantee that we will achieve our goals. God may have other plans for our work. Perhaps your undertaking will serve only to teach you a lesson that God wants you to learn. Perhaps God wanted you to do it for the benefit of one person, and in this life you may never know what a success your “failure” was in God’s economy.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of a “failure” is the ministry of Jim Elliot. Jim Elliot, along with several others, was a missionary to a tribe in Ecuador that had previously had very little contact with the outside world. Jim and several of the men with him were killed by members of the tribe, and if you stop the story there, it seems as if Jim’s life was wasted. But the fact is, the story does not end there. Jim’s wife and daughter later went back to work with that same tribe and led many of them to a relationship with Jesus. Jim Elliot looked like a failure, but he died chasing daylight. And his work laid the foundation for Elisabeth and Valerie Elliot to carry out the dream that God had placed in him.

In fact, the redemption of mankind looked to be a failure when Jesus was crucified. The hope of all the world was dead. Because we know the end of the story we easily forget the desperate situation that the disciples faced when Jesus died. They couldn’t just read ahead three paragraphs to find out that everything turned out all right. The very Son of God seemed to have failed, but three days later, Jesus rose from the grave, having conquered sin and death.

I don’t have enough minutes left in my life to let them go to waste. Many of you know that God called me into ministry years ago when I was in high school, and you may also know that when I graduated from college I didn’t have many opportunities to fulfill that calling. But on Good Friday of this year, God renewed that call on my life. After months of trying to figure out how what to do next, I was presented with the opportunity to do a one-year internship program at my church. It was a hard decision. God didn’t come down and tell me to take it, and as excited as I am about the program now, initially there was part of me that really didn’t want it.

This will be my fifth internship in a church or ministry, and I had to swallow a lot of pride to become an intern again. At a point when I likely would have been advancing to a mid-level position I made a decision to go back to the bottom. However, I believe that pride is one of the reasons that God put me on a three year detour after college. He has been teaching me the hard lesson of humility. It doesn’t matter if I’m in charge or at the bottom of the ladder. It doesn’t matter if my name is in lights or no one ever knows who I am. What is important is that God is glorified and that the work of His kingdom is done.

Those of you who are reading this and who aren’t followers of Jesus may think that all of this is a crock of crap. In fact, I would bet that you’ve already stopped reading, but perhaps there is something you can take from all of this as well. I can only imagine that most of you, if not all of you, want more out of life. If you’re like me you are tempted at times to just sit back and watch the world go by, to come home from work, flip on the boob tube, and waste the night away, but isn’t there more than that? Help a child learn to read. Clean up a state park. Serve the families of soldiers who are serving overseas. I believe that total fulfillment can only be found in Christ, but you can experience the joy that comes from serving others. I think that we all know that there’s more to life than our simple lives behind our white picket fences.

So in other words, chase daylight. Seize your divine moments. Take risks. Grab opportunities. “Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.” You might not always succeed, but as Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Note: It’s late, but I really want to get this up tonight, so I’m reserving the right to edit it tomorrow.

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It’s been a while since my last post, and I had been posting so regularly too. Ah well, such is life, and a lot has happened in the interim.

Two months ago I mentioned in my first post that I studied theology in college and was actually ordained as a pastor in my home denomination (or non-denomination as the case may be). I also wrote that I regularly question my decision not to enter the ministry, but I didn’t realize quite how prophetic that was when I wrote it.

Perhaps I should begin at the beginning.

I grew up in the Church, but like many, once I reached my teenage years I wasn’t exactly focused on God. My parents weren’t going to church at the time, and I began to live my life in whatever way I chose. A funny thing happened shortly before I turned sixteen. I realized that I would no longer have an excuse to avoid church. Of course, if I’m honest, I had no excuse before that, considering that I lived virtually across the street from a church.

Anyway, I attended for a few months, keeping up a Christian facade, something not that hard to do when you know all of the “right answers.” Somehow (i.e. through the providence of God, a couple of loving youth workers, and some quality peers), I was convinced to attend a week-long youth conference after a few months. There I reconnected with Jesus in a meaningful way.

Later that summer the church intern that I was dating questioned my quest for money (read: future Harvard Law grad). She was going into the ministry and asked me something to the effect of “What could be better than saving souls?” (It always comes back to a girl, doesn’t it?) At that moment the Holy Spirit broke something inside of me. I began to weep, and I realized that my desire to become wealthy wasn’t important, that bringing people to a saving knowledge of Jesus meant far more. This is, perhaps, the most embarrassing part of the story for me. Who wants to admit that one’s entire future was shaped by an ex-girlfriend? It’s also funny to look back on the decidedly crude language. Jesus will be doing the saving. Anything I do is only through His power and grace.

Rather than applying to a bunch of Ivy League institutions, I decided to go to a local school (not something that I wanted to do) because it was a quality Christian college (also not something that I wanted). Do you notice the trend of God doing things because He has plans for me in spite of what I want or where I may be headed? Take note of that, it doesn’t stop here.

When I graduated from college, I was done with school. That only sounds tautological; it’s not really. On a very personal level, I was done. I would have neither enjoyed nor flourished at seminary. I simply couldn’t handle any more classes or tests or papers. I needed a break from that. Consequently, I began to look for some kind of job in ministry. That was, after all, what I had been called to do, but the more I looked, the more it seemed that it seemed that doors weren’t opening. Those that were open weren’t where I wanted to be or where I felt God was calling me.

I must admit that this wasn’t exactly a shining moment in my walk with Christ. I suppose every relationship ebbs and flows, but I was seriously ebbing. I was preoccupied with my fiancee and graduation, and I simply wasn’t focusing on my relationship with God, in spite of the fact that I was trying to enter the ministry. In the midst of all of this I suddenly panicked and felt the need to be ordained. Shoot, I was going to be a pastor (or at least work in a para-church organization), I needed to be official. Who wants to hire a youth pastor who hasn’t been ordained. This is, of course, another one of those exceedingly embarrassing occurrences. Instead of recognizing the gravity and seriousness of ordination, instead of praying about it and seeking God’s will, I just jumped in head first. I wonder what God thought about that one.

Right around the time of graduation my fiancee was offered a job at the National Security Council. I hadn’t had any luck with my job search, so we decided she should take it. We got married in July and moved to DC the following January. (Those pesky security clearances take far longer than The Man tells you they will.) Through a combination of my friends I had at school, classes I took, an internship I had, and once again God’s guiding hand, I developed a passion for social justice. Out of this grew an interest in politics, and considering my inability to find a job in ministry and my relocation to Washington DC, I decided to pursue a career in politics.

Things were off to a pretty good start once I got here. Within two weeks I had gotten an entry-level job in a Senator’s office, and a year later I began a foreign policy program at National Defense University’s School for National Security Executive Education. My plan was to work in foreign affairs and effect change in American foreign policy on issues such as aid and peacekeeping.

Fourteen months after I started in Senator Bill Nelson’s office I was offered a position as a legislative correspondent, a fairly low-level position but a legislative job nonetheless and a stepping stone to a more significant policy position. This was shortly after the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, and literally half of Senator Nelson’s legislative staff was leaving. There were seemingly limitless job opportunities for Democrats. The legislative director had the daunting task of trying to fill 10 legislative slots in a job market that wasn’t friendly to employers. I was sitting in his office, and he had just offered me the job. I accepted it. I told him I wanted it. I swear I did. I guess my memory could be playing tricks on me, but I swear I had already accepted the job when he asked if I wanted a night to think it over. I’m thinking to myself, “No, I don’t want a night to think it over. I want to get out of this data entry job.” Instead, I said, “I guess so, I interviewed for a position in the House and never heard back.” I e-mailed the person I had interviewed with there, and she said not to do anything without calling her first. I called her around 2:00 PM and told her that I had just been offered a position. She got me in to see the staff director and deputy staff director later that afternoon, and by 5:00 PM they had offered me the job. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed so evident that I should take the position in my current office, but I was praying about it and knew God was telling me to take the House job. It didn’t make any sense. The House job was doing web stuff. I had done that before. I didn’t want to do it again. I had no interest in producing websites for a living. Not to mention that it didn’t fit in with my career goals at all. Being a leg staffer and working on new media have nothing in common. Transitioning that gap would be like moving from being an an artist at Hallmark to being their accountant. Other than the fact that you work at the same place, they really aren’t related. I had no idea what my next step would be if I took the job in the House.

I took it anyway. I decided to trust God and see what would happen. I’ve since realized how good it is to do that.

I’ve found that I really enjoy technology, that design and coding get me fired up. Plus, I make more money and work shorter hours than I would have in the legislative position. In fact, I realized that I didn’t want to do policy work at all. I had found a new passion. I loved web design and development. I began to pursue that career path. I made connections with the right people. I learned PHP (a computer language commonly used online). I produced one of the most popular videos to ever come out of Congress. I began volunteering on the Barack Obama campaign and hoped to eventually get a position in the White House new media operation.

That all came to a screeching halt two weeks ago. I was sitting in service on Good Friday when I felt the call again. It wasn’t exactly a voice; it was just something I knew in my spirit. God was calling me back to ministry. He is bringing me full circle.

I spent the better part of the past three years confused. I questioned why God had called me to ministry in the first place. After a while I sort-of just “forgot” that it had happened. I obviously knew that it had occurred, but it just sort of merged in to this general idea of “Do good. Make a difference with your life.” rather than a distinct call to ministry. I figured that working for social justice politically was what I was going to do. Of course, after a while, this began to slip away too. It remained, but there was an ever growing temptation to just find a job I enjoyed (or start a business) that paid well, rather than really working for something I believed in.

I don’t know exactly what the three year detour was about, but He has taught me a great deal during this time, much of it about trust and integrity. And I imagine that these lessons were at least part of His reason.

I don’t know exactly what’s next. I don’t know what God’s plans are. I don’t know if his time frame is one month or six. I do know that this call was real. He has reaffirmed it time and time again for the past two weeks through conversations with friends and co-workers, not just by encouragement they have given me but advice that is timely and questions that are pointed and could only have come from God. I’m still working in the House, but I’ve told my bosses that I’m planning to enter the ministry and won’t be there long term. I’m working to find a ministry position, but I’m also trusting that God will put me where He wants me when He wants me there and that He’ll tell me where that is when He decides it’s time. It’s not for me to worry about.

I’m excited for this new stage of my journey, and I look forward to writing more as things develop.