redeemedson

The Lord has taken my family through a sanctifying whirlwind over the past two years that makes me tear up when I recall those 730 days and their contained events. Through these tough times, Christ has become ever dearer to my soul and my attachment to the things and idols I held so dear have drifted further from my thoughts and pursuits. During the past two years, Danielle and I have experienced some minor changes in our lives.

I finished my studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY in 2004 and our family immediately moved to South Asia as missionaries to Muslims to pursue the calling for which I had been preparing for nine years. However, after only four months on the field, we were forced to resign from our position because our board's doctors believed my wife had experienced several strokes and possibly had a brain tumor. We returned to America without the slightest clue about what our future would hold.

Following a frantic search for a new place of ministry and contemplating other vocations to support my family, the Lord opened a door for us to move to Kentucky to work as the minister of discipleship at a large church in a seemingly quite little town. Only three months into this position, we unfortunately realized that our time there was limited as years of unaddressed sin within this congregation was coming to a head.

Simultaneously with the worsening of our situation at this church, a Presbyterian church (PCA) approached me about becoming their Director of Mercy Ministry (To learn more about Mercy Ministry and what it actually is, see the following website: http://www.davidsapple.blogspot.com/ ). Although my wife and I had been actually doing what is known as Mercy Ministry for several years, I did not have a clue that such a formally recognized ministry existed. After a few months of talking with this church's leadership and praying over the decision, we accepted the call, changing denominations, churches, and ministry pursuits in the blink of an eye. In a matter of two years, we transitioned from aspiring Southern Baptist missionaries to urban ministry within the PCA.

This decision has brought a wide variety of criticism, indifference, and encouragment from my friends depending on various issues. Why would I lead my family to make such a drastic move? We have utterly picked up our roots down to the smallest ones imaginable in leaving our church, friends, family, and even our beloved denomination. The answer can only be found in our desire to be obedient to our Lord. Honestly, I am by no means a fatalist when I say this as I hold to God's absolute sovereignty, I could do nothing other than follow in obedience to this position through His leading. Obviously we have to follow our convictions concerning Scripture, but what happens when the Lord overrides our convictions? What happens when God's sovereign hand outweighs what we think we should never do, specifically in my case, leave one's denomination? I am certainly not a paedobaptist (although I must admit that my polity has always aligned more closely with the Presbyterians than the Congregationalists) and I am by no means a disgruntled baptist, which is seemingly the source from which the PCA in the South gains most of its members. I do not understand why the Lord has brought about this in our lives, but we know that He has (anyone knowing our previous situation and having had conversations with me through all of it knows that this opportunity was not my creation or a decision made flipantly). I pray that you will find refuge in our good and faithful Creator when he calls you to trod through difficult decisions and circumstances for His name's sake (1 Peter 4:12-19). May we never think ourselves wiser than our Lord. Samuel Rutherford penned the following poem that brings comfort during such times,

Inscrutable the ways of God,
Beyond the mind of man!
For who can read His hidden thought
Or search His secret plan?
I had one joy, one garland fair,
The flower I loved the best,
But in a single hour Christ came
And plucked it to His breast.

I dare not say the Lord has quenched
My candle's flickering glow,
Or cast His waters on the coals
That burnt already low;
And still I wrestle to believe
A veiled and covered God,
But faint my heart, my faith bowed down
Beneath the pressing load.

O that my Lord might smile again,
His love upon me pour;
Come home to this afflicted heart,
Bring summer back once more!
Then would I preach with unloosed tongue
His beauty and His power,
My withered branc would bud anew
And bear another flower.

Yet God in wisdowm chose for me
This furnace and this flame,
And doubting not His choice the best,
I greet it in His name.
So will I praise Him for this stroke,
Till Christ at length appears
To turn my long captivity
An dry His people's tears.