Stepping into Grace, Part II(a): Released

This is the second post in a series of articles describing my journey during a major transitional period in my life that would lead me across the country and into a totally different career path.   More importantly, though, it would lead me into a major paradigm shift in how I perceived God and His heart for me and His children. 

For those of you who read my last blog post (the link is here: https://ryanchaley.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/hello-world/), I had ended it on a bit of a cliffhanger, as I was about to hear powerfully from the Lord at a 4-day personal retreat. During this time I would be seeking His will for the future direction of my life after feeling a growing discontent with my career in real estate, despite very recent momentum and success in growing my business. I needed to take the requisite time to do some soul-searching and intentional time away of listening to God to have peace, clarity and resolution about either continuing forward as a Realtor or pursuing another career/calling. Part II of this blog series, entitled “Released”, is all about the revelation God gave me during those four days at the monastery that released me in more ways than one. There was so much that He spoke to me during those days that, in order to make it more manageable to read, I’m actually breaking Part II into several different posts, of which this is the first.

At the beginning of this four-day retreat as I settled into my room at the monastery and walked the grounds, I was immediately struck by the peace and beauty of the place. Certainly, if there were a place I could get away from the frenetic pace of big-city life to hear clearly from God, it would be here. The detachment from the “outside world”, including all electronics, was refreshing and freeing. Additionally,  the wide open spaces in the countryside served to facilitate some wide open space inside my own head to process the thoughts and feelings bouncing around inside of me; and more importantly, whatever it was God wanted to share with me.

At this time my biggest concern was that I would take this 4 days and not feel a sense of peace, clarity and powerful confirmation about the Lord’s direction for my life. Some scriptural encouragement that God had been speaking into my heart even before arriving there was,”Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you” (James 4:8a); and “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Of course, the well-known promises from Matthew 7:7 also spoke to me: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I was going to be doing some serious asking and seeking during this time, so all of these promises from the Word of God were especially timely, relevant and encouraging to me.

This was a great example of the Holy Spirit taking the Logos (written Word of God as contained in the Bible, universally and generally applicable to all people at all times) and making it become Rhema (a personal, “now-word” of God that speaks to a specific person, at a specific time, in a specific circumstance). Namely, in this context, God was reassuring me that He was going to really “show up” during this time and powerfully confirm to me that He would indeed give me guidance, clarity and direction about whether or not to remain in real estate, and that I needn’t worry about “wasting these 4 days” at the monastery only to come away without any clear sense of what to do.

These scriptures would later prove to be anchor points that I could “hang my hat on” so I could believe that what I heard was actually God and not just misguided thoughts from my own head leading me astray. This was significant for me because I have a tendency to hyper-analyze and try to anxiously figure things out on my own by considering every possible angle and scenario, which can be very complicated and exhausting. I am also acutely aware of my human tendency to avoid difficulties/hardship and hear what I want to hear; therefore, I was concerned about my ability to truly be objective and hear with a pure heart from the Lord when I felt I had an agenda of sorts going into this time of seeking God (which, in this case, was to remove myself from the unpleasant situation I was currently in by quitting my job as a Realtor).

You see, my natural inclination up to this point had been to push through difficulties and overcome challenges to achieve good things; tendencies that were only reinforced by my time in the military and now as a hungry young businessman trying hard to build his business. In both contexts the clear message was always to pull myself up by my bootstraps, suck it up, keep a stiff upper lip, and do whatever it took to overcome resistance and shun pain for the greater reward that would come. I’ve had it drilled into me over and over that by overcoming obstacles and enduring pain and difficulty my character would be developed and I will become a more responsible, mature person. Accordingly, I had unconsciously come to conceive of God as “the God who requires difficult things of me, because it will be good for me in the end.” This was one of the first major revelations God gave me at the monastery.

While there is no doubt that my life had been enriched and positively shaped by some very real truth to this statement/perspective, the Holy Spirit was pointing out to me that this had become my uncontested default way of thinking, such that my unconscious orientation was that any decision to do what was natural, easy, and enjoyable must–by definition–be the wrong one. God was now clearly showing me that if this was the only way I ever thought about Him or approached life that it would inevitably lead to burnout, frustration and resentment against both Him and myself, as I would constantly be struggling uphill, against the grain of all my own human inclinations.

The Lord started to open my eyes more to his role as “a good Father who delights to give good gifts to His kids” (Matthew 7:11). One of the most passionate desires of my heart for the past 5+ years has been to find a career/calling that I truly love and am good at; one in which I can find incredible meaning, fulfillment and significance by utilizing my God-given gifts and desires in a way that helps others and makes God known. While I fully believed that this was a desire that had been planted in my heart by God Himself, I was having trouble believing that this could actually be the point in my life where I was going to step into this deep desire and the realization of this dream. A breakthrough moment came for me as God started to reveal himself more as my Father in a very practical, human way that I had not conceived of before. This is where the next blog post will begin. Stay tuned for more, and thank you for letting me walk this journey with you.