I took a walk tonight through town. I have been walking a few days a week over a stretch of town to get some exercise in, to pray, and to gather my thoughts. Tonight, I walked by the place that we had hoped and prayed that we would own. This was going to be the place that we would open a well of opportunity for our community to come together. It was going to be the dream of operating a coffee shop. I had this dream for over a decade. I had the business plans all ready to go, had the opportunity to buy the property, and then our world came crashing down.

It was January of 2017 that the cracks beneath our foundation began to surface in my career. Nearly a decade of serving a world-wide organization, I had prayed that God would open doors for promotion, for an increase, for whatever it would take to grab hold of our dream. I would find myself by the end of that month unemployed and wondering what I would do to provide for my family. The dream that I had slowly drifted away.

Did I miss God?

That was the question that I asked myself during the last year and a half. That was the question that I desired to see answered. After all of this time of believing, I honestly had doubts. Tonight was no different. I walked down that road and by that building with that very question. That answer wasn’t a thundering response nor was it a rebuke from God for asking. A still small piece of me was still seeing what I had seen over all of those years.

Did God Answer?

I did not hear God’s audible voice. I know, often you read these stories and the author tells about an epiphany or a sign from God that this was or was not to be. I did not get that.  I believe it can happen. But my experience wasn’t the same.  I did have a small sense of peace. It didn’t answer my question. However, it did answer the struggle. It gave me a peace of knowing that God is listening. In James 1:5, the author writes;

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

I find comfort in knowing that I can ask God and without finding fault in me or in my questioning, he answers. The when is not defined. The how is not told, but the Who is. I may not know.

“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.” -Unknown

I had a revelation one day while driving to work. I looked over at my passenger mirror and it read “Objects may be larger than they appear.” How often do we look at our situation and think that it’s huge? In 1 Peter 5, the apostle wrote about the worries of the saints being cast upon the Lord. In verses 6-8 we are instructed to “humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, at the right time He will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” Whenever a situation arises that I find overwhelming or too big for me to handle, I look around for the lion. I imagine him “like” a roaring lion. The vision I have for him is a large, overgrown, fat cat with no teeth and a blow horn. “You mean, you don’t fear him? You mean, you’re not afraid of him?” Let me answer this in an easy way.

In the book of Isaiah 14, the prophet Isaiah tore the devil apart with prophesy of what God will do to avenge His people. In verse 16, we read “Everyone there will stare at you and ask, ‘Can this be the one who shook the earth and made the kingdoms of the world tremble?” I don’t worry about him because we will look upon him and realize how “big” he really is. Our God is far bigger in comparison to the enemy. Friend, your perspective of the problem will weigh how big you believe that your God is to handle it. There’s an old saying that when your problems tell you how big they are, remind them how big your God is. In Matthew 19:26, Jesus was speaking to the disciples about salvation but it also includes everything in life. Jesus said “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” God is so big that everything is possible.

It is easy to look at the problem that you and I are facing but when we realize that our God is bigger than the problem, we relinquish the power to be in fear. I received this quote while I was working on this chapter that reads “You must realize, that fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do no misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.” Fear is a choice that you and I make when we arrive at a situation or problem. I have a way to remind me the truth about fear that I use often. Fear is truthfully “forgetting everything about reality.” Fear reveals an emotion that often is a lie. You and I both know that the situation isn’t going to be the end of us.

As you and I navigate this life, we are often found guilty of having our noses down because our problems weigh us down. We tend to look at the negative and at the glass as half-empty. Our problems are often smaller that they really are. When we see that there are starving people in third world countries, we are less likely to complain about the wait at a restaurant. When we hear of the unemployment lines, we are likely to embrace our jobs with more enthusiasm. When we witness the injustices of people who can’t get a broken arm fixed, we are less likely to complain about the headache that we have. And the list goes on and on. Recently, I came across this letter online (netjeff.com) to help you and me to get a bit of a better understanding;

Dear Mom and Dad,

It has now been three months since I left for college. I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date but before you read on you had better sit down. Okay? I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and concussion I got when I jumped out of my apartment window when it caught fire after my arrival here is pretty well healed. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get these sick headaches once a day.

Fortunately the fire and my jump were witnessed by Roger an attendant at the gas station, and he was the one who called the fire department. He also visited me in the hospital, and since I had nowhere to live he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. He is a very fine man, and we are planning to get married. We haven’t set the date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. His divorce is final now, and he shares custody of his 3 children. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that Roger has a minor infection which prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests, and I carelessly caught it from him. This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am taking daily.

Now that I have brought you up to date I want to tell you that there was no fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I do not have syphilis, and there is no divorced man in my life. However, I am getting a “D” in Art and an “F” in Biology and I wanted you to see these marks in the proper perspective.

Your loving daughter,

Jane

If you or I received this letter from our child, the failing grade would be a relief. However, if we only got the call that they were failing, we would be upset and find it unacceptable. What changed in this scenario to help make the parents see things in a different perspective? If we take a moment and look at the situation from afar, it doesn’t seem all that bad. It actually may be so minuet that we miss the point. However, when we are right in the middle of it, the situation seems so impossible to get out.

To us, it would seem like rocket science to look into the cockpit of a plane. The dashboard would intimidate us with all the gears and buttons. More importantly, we would have a hard time being able to navigate with the gauges. To a pilot, it is second nature. He sees the temperature gauge that tells him how hot or cold the engines are, the altitude to know how far from the ground he is, and the fuel gauge to know how much fuel would be left to fly the plane. However, there is a little known gauge that you and I may not be familiar with but it is critical to the operation of the plane and that is the altitude indicator. The attitude indicator reads how the plane is flying and what position that it is in. If the plane’s attitude is sinking, it is considered “nose-down” and if it’s rising, the plane’s attitude is “nose-up.” If the nose is down, the plane is destined to crash. There is no denying that it is heading down because the gauge shows that it is sinking. The only thing to do is to change course and pull the plane up to the desired destination.

Over the life of our marriage, I have found myself in this predicament; not only do the kids go back to school but so do I! As I near 40 with three kids and a wife, it is even more difficult for me to retain the information that I need to and have the energy to be able to be husband, dad, full-time employee, and student. At one point, I was going to work at 3 am, getting off at 230, heading to school at 4, coming home at 9, spending what time I had left with my wife, and then to bed just to start over the next day. (I am confident that my wife was ready to disown me at this point…)

I have learned, however, how to balance these things over the years because I firmly believe that we have to constantly learn to be relevant in our professions and in society.  There are 4 things that I learned during this stint in being in school while holding all the other titles that come along with being almost 40;

1. Read.  This may be the most vital portion of this topic. Reading what you are learning will help you to understand what you need for your exams. A few things here are helpful; highlighters to highlight the important terms and definitions throughout each chapter, take one chapter at a time, write notes as you read or type them out, and re-read what you have written.
   
2. Listen. One thing that I have learned is that listening is vital to studying. Whether you are recording your professor to listen to later or listening to teachings online (including videos), your brain will absorb the information and help recall what you have learned in conjunction with what you have read. Sites like YouTube, Udemy, and your university are a plethora of resources for you to watch and/or listen to lessons to help you retain what you have learned.
   
3. Do. The problem with most courses or classes is that you don’t get the experience of doing what you learn while you are learning it. It is important to find performance-based questions, practice questions, and quizzes to test you for your readiness for your exams. Another way to do is to teach someone. Showing someone even if they don’t know or even care what you are doing will help you cultivate the part of your brain to jog your memory when the exams come.
   
4. Balance. As a reminder, you are not a superhero! Do not burn out with trying to study at all times. You have to find that balance. I have had to learn this the hard way. You cannot study 24/7 as much as you would like to.  You have to balance your time in studying, family and for yourself.  It has been proven that if you study all of the time, you will lose what you learn because your brain is in overload. In between the comings and goings, I had to make my family a top priority. Whether it was playing games while I was extremely exhausted, listening to my wife talk about the day, or whatever, I had to break down some time to be with my family and put them first. You are nothing without God and family. If you don’t have your life in balance, you will fall flat. This goes back to the first thing I wrote about.

I am sure that I missed something. I mean, there are a lot of things that I left out. What advice would you give to a person going back to school with a full-time job and family?