Hearing God is like GPS: when you don’t get any instructions to turn left or right, you just keep moving forward.
Tony and I spent the rest of that summer working on the screenplay that we’d been hired to write. I still wondered how this would jibe with my calling to ministry.
I talked to a few other pastors and leaders about this, and some of them proposed that God might be calling me to minister through screenwriting, as I could potentially speak to more people than I would by preaching from a pulpit. The possibility thrilled me, so I did my best and wrote a draft of the screenplay with Tony.
We submitted our first draft to the producer and heard nothing until a few weeks later, when he finally got back to us with some notes and paid us for the first draft. He told us that the project was going to be put on hold for a while. This was not a good sign; it also meant that we might not get paid any further if there wouldn’t be any subsequent drafts, as our contract was to be paid for each draft.
That paycheck ran out by the end of summer. It wasn’t a lot to begin with, since Tony and I were newbies to the industry. Meanwhile, Soo and I learned in July that she was pregnant with our first child. Joyful news, but we were concerned about how we’d provide for the baby, as the movie project looked dead in the water and I hadn’t held a regular job in nearly a year.
I asked God what was going on, and what I should do next.
No impressions, no visions, no voices. No answer (at least one that I could detect).
I prayed harder. I prayed with more despair. I tried to duplicate my “I’m too stupid to understand, so help me” prayer. But still, relative silence.
I went to one of the pastors for advice. He said, “Sometimes, when it seems that God isn’t speaking to you, it’s because He’s already told you what He wants you to hear.”
I had done my best to obey everything I was asked to do– join a small group, go to Bangkok, write a movie– but they all seemed like dead ends. Our church didn’t offer me a job. The movie project was on hold. Being a small group leader, while rewarding, was not going to help me support a family.
Having a baby on the way made me desperate to try anything. I sent out as many résumés as I could, and I resolved that if I couldn’t get a job as a graphic designer, I would take any job that came my way, even if it was stocking shelves at a supermarket or the local department store.
Around that time, I started noticing an announcement in the church’s weekly bulletin. “Help Wanted!” I skimmed through the text to see what it was about– maybe it was something I could apply to. It was for an administrative assistant position.
I scoffed. “Doesn’t that mean ‘secretary?’” I was a married man in my mid-thirties and had a baby on the way, and most of the administrative assistants at church were young women in their twenties, fresh out of college. I shoved the bulletin aside and prayed for other opportunities to come along.
Nothing did. And week after week, I’d see that ad in the bulletin, silently screaming in my face.
“Help wanted!”
I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. I thought back to the words of my calling to ministry:
“Stop working so hard on that show. It’s not going to last very long. You’re going to serve God, you’re going to work at a church, and you’re going to be a pastor someday.”
It occurred to me that perhaps these were in chronological order: First, my show got canceled, then, I started serving as a small group leader. The words I got didn’t say I’d become a pastor right away– it said, “someday,” so maybe I needed to focus on the part in between– the part that said to work at a church. Maybe I just needed to get my foot in the door. Besides, if I were willing to work at a supermarket, I might as well go for this admin position at church: at least, it would be more in alignment with what I felt called me to do.
After a full month of ignoring the help wanted ad, I swallowed my pride and mustered up the courage to send in a résumé and cover letter.
My phone rang later that evening. It was pastor Ed.
“What a pleasant surprise to see your name on this stack of résumés,” he said. Ed told me that the position, to be his administrative assistant, had already been filled, but he invited me to come in and interview anyway. I did, meeting with Ed and two new pastors who needed an administrative assistant of their own.
We laughed. We clicked. I thought I nailed the interview, but at the end, they asked me for references and said they’d get back to me shortly.
I didn’t hear anything for weeks. If God was testing me again, He was really stretching my endurance to its limit.
Prayers of desperation turned into prayers of exasperation. I didn’t know what to pray for anymore, or what to do. I surrendered in the most surrendered way I could, with hardly anything left of me to throw down before God.
Then, three weeks after my interview, I received a phone call from Pastor Ed. He told me that the person he had hired to be his assistant had just quit, and if I wanted the position, it was mine.
My first day on the job was November 1, 2006. I was working at the church! Another part of my calling had come to pass, and the only thing left to fulfill was to become a pastor. I didn’t know how this would unfold, but I trusted that if this was indeed what God wanted, it would happen.
I just didn’t know when.
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.
(Prov. 16:9 NIV)
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