Confusing the issue


Today I had another cross-country jaunt to check out another possible vacant charge. My primary purpose was to ‘compare and contrast’ with the one that it currently bubbling away as a distinct possibility. I had various reasons for not being too interested, but its ‘c&c’ role made it a potentially useful visit.

Aaaargghhh!!!

Now it’s top of my list!

And it still has some of the issues that put me off it in the first place.

And one of the main reasons why I was being advised against it (sort of) is the very reason I like it.

All this ‘discernment’ stuff is really doing my head in. Just when I think I’ve got somewhere more or less sussed, along comes something to muddy the waters. (s’pose that’s why it’s called discernment.)

Actually, it’s not really a muddy-ing of the waters, to be fair. Either of the two places currently attracting me would be good charges. Both are quite different from each other and both have, I’d say, quite different challenges. The issue is less about how unclear a call is, but rather making a decision between two clear, to me, calls.

Mind you, I’m somewhat jumping the gun. As far as I know, one of the charges only has me interested. The other appears to be fairly popular. A little bit of me is saying, “Well, you’ll not get it anyway. There are loads more ministers out there who are better than you. You don’t deserve such a great place.”

It’s hard to ignore those thoughts and turn the focus on the apparent ‘certainty’ of one of them. But that doesn’t feel right either. But I don’t want to get my hopes up on what might only be an outside possibility. And I feel a bit guilty about appearing so keen for the first one and now I’m looking elsewhere.

And all that makes me feel confused. Probably not the best state of mind to be making decisions and a definite sign of needing more time in contemplation and prayer.

In the meantime, two applications will be getting put out and I had better stop looking for the moment until some of the confusion clears.

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4 responses to “Confusing the issue”

  1. Lamont,

    Thank you for taking time to comment and for leaving such a challenging question.

    You’ll appreciate that I can’t answer with specifics here, but it’s a thought I’ll be sure to carry with me now as part of that discernment process (and always balancing it with humility that a lot of the good I may like to do is already being done).

  2. John–

    I understand your need for non-transparent discression at this point.  When you are able, I’d love to hear what your own process for discernment is, and how it unfolds for this decision.

    All the best–

    Lamont    

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