In Stasis

I have not written for a long time on this blog largely because I've been on an epic journey. It wasn't supposed to be an epic journey -- just a jaunt for a few weeks to visit my folks in Texas. But now we've been gone from Hungary since July 20th. And our adventure of military "space available" travel has taken us from Ramstein, Germany, through Trier, off to Washington State, on to Texas, to Delaware where we sought flights to Germany then moved on to Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, then to New Jersey, only to return to Washington DC and wait for flights. The bottom line is that we cannot seem to get a flight back to Europe.

It is a time of much angst, aggravation, and frustration. And while we have been trapped in the USA, our car's registration (in Hungary) expired, the school year started without us, and our dog died.

Our lifestyle now is simply a series of fruitless, endless hours at airports up and down the eastern seaboard, waiting for the ever evasive flight we can never get a seat on. We feel helpless and sort of in a state of stasis -- a period of life when nothing seems productive and one just exists.

But I guess such periods in life are a natural part of the Christian life. I guess we tend to think the Christian life should be all about those periods of intense ministry or spiritual epiphanies. But those years that feel more like stasis are a real part of the Christian life. We are frustrated as we seem to just be spinning our wheels and going nowhere.

But if you, like me, have ever felt like you are in stasis, we are not alone. Consider the apostle Paul who spent about 14 "unknown" years of his Christian life doing nothing recorded before beginning ministry. Even Jesus himself did not rush into ministry at the moment he hit adulthood. He started at age 30.

Those periods of waiting are no fun, but that does not mean they are not productive.

Although enjoying friends' generosity and hospitality, I find myself in one of the places I really do not want to be. I want to be home. I need to be home. I want to serve God THERE! So why won't He let me go!

Because apparently I need to be here in stasis. And although it may feel like stasis, it really isn't. It is an opportunity for me to let God call the shots, even when it is incredibly inconvenient and periodically a bit uncomfortable for me.

It is an opportunity to say, "Yes, God," regardless of what He asks me to walk through. It is an opportunity to release control of my life, which I never really had control of anyhow.

And so we wait and try to catch a flight, again and again. I know someday we will get back, I'm sure. Until then it's time to make the most of the moment wherever I am and submit to His greater plan, knowing that -- however inconvenient, it is the best plan in the grand scheme.