Jude 2

Hey guys, have been more in lurker or absent mode for awhile here, but still check in when I can.

Yesterday was an interesting day, after some very frustrating things at work (which have become normal when they involve one certain coworker) I received a phone call about a job I applied for a week or two ago. (honestly I saw the job in an email from Monster.com and just though well why not, but didn't really take it seriously or even write a cover letter or update the resume)

Timing on this (a day I was really ready to leave due to the ongoing issues, lack of respect and hopeless rut that sometimes can describe my job) really took me by surprise, and the phone call turned into more of an impromptu phone interview than just a call back on my resume followed by an invitation to come the next day (today) for a more formal interview.

my supervisor (and friend) is familiar with the company and basically when she heard who it was is pretty sure they will move fast and hire me right away, pay will most likely be much better, don't know anything about benefits, schedule is a little earlier in the day, and may includes some overtime, but sounds doable, and could probably fit better with pastoring in some ways. Commute is about the same (wish it was shorter, but we're in a pretty rural area at the church).

I have spent half my life on this campus, and with all the frustration, it still feels like home. Opportunities to advance have been non-existent and most likely I would be much better off if I had not stayed here, but it's been safe, it's been comfortable, and for the most part I've been treated well and work with some great people.

My fear is that I will either a) hold on to what is known and miss a great opportunity, as I easily could have been doing for awhile now, or b) will allow my frustration with some recent things cause me to jump too fast.

I'll go in this afternoon for the interview, and I should know more then. I don't plan to make any decision today, but to take time to pray about it, but I ask all who would to keep me in prayer, I really want God's will in this and I need Him to lead me.

Bill,

You're doing what John Ortberg (borrowing from Bob Buford) called a "low cost probe", seeing what's out there without any costly commitment, to see if God may be leading you that way. Good work! Also, he mentions that discernment honors previous decisions and commitments so that you can tell whether something is God's "go for it" or "slow down"; if something builds off your previous experience, God redeems that and it may be indication that the probe is, indeed, showing you God's next step in your life. If it doesn't, it is a caution not to jump too quickly, to slow down and continue to seek God for other opportunities or for further confirmation on the current one. He also quotes from Henry Blackaby in order to provide some perspective on the "God is in this situation" sense of it. Blackaby wrote that "I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God." In other words, God thoroughly equips you as you go so that you are not the one doing a new and good thing, in a sense, without Him.

So, through no experience of my own that would qualify to suggest this to you, no testimony that I can readily point to that said, "Hey, Ortberg's advice worked for ME!", I do realize that this makes good sense and is consistent with Biblical revelation of how God works. I pray for you that God will help you use all of what He has done until now and through now to do what's next in Him.

thanks, that makes sense, in some ways this job would be less responsibility, and more "basic" than where I am now, but there would be more area for growth, and while it fits my experience, it leans heavier to some of my weaker areas as well where I rely on a couple of co workers for confidence, so in that way there would be some challenge to it too.