I got a new job.

So I just got a new job at Prairie Lakes Church. Third one in 3 years. College Pastor, then Worship Pastor, and now... well, my title stays the same, but my responsibilities have changed. Whereas I used to report to the Program Director who headed up Programming and Production (music, tech, and everything weekend services), now I'll be heading up that department, reporting to the Executive Pastor, working with the Senior Pastor to develop sermon series, and the Programming and Production team to brainstorm, create, and produce services.

This is another new chapter for me. A new set of skills to learn. Management of people and departmental projects. Human resources processes. A [big] budget. Hiring. Tracking and metrics. Networking. A higher level of visibility, accountability, and expectations.

And, to be quite honest, when I think about all of that at once, I get more than a little anxious. One night it was even hard to get to sleep, thinking about all of it. Feeling like I'm in over my head before I begin. Wondering if I'll measure up, if I'll fall flat, if this will be the time when I really bit off more than I could chew.

But then I looked again, and this time not with my own eyes.

I desperately want to avoid sounding hyper spiritual on the one hand, and cliche on the other. But as I felt the anxiety grow, the Lord brought to my mind a lesson that I learned when I was a kid.

When I was a kid--junior high--I worried all the time. All the time. And severely. Over everything that had to do with expectations--what teachers expected of me, what parents expected of me, what coaches expected of me, what I expected of me, what I thought God expected of me. One time I remember worrying so much over registration for a spelling bee--that's right, registration for a spelling bee... not performing... not performing... but a mistake in registering, and whether or not I'd be let in--that I literally threw up.

And I never could get to sleep at a decent hour. Still can't. But those were prime worry hours. Just laying there in my bed, in the dark, alone with my worrisome pre-teen/early-teen thoughts. Item after item. List after list. Tomorrow grew burdensome and heavy, becoming my master before it even unfolded.

Then one day I learned how to gain access to a power greater than worry, and how worry used fear to grip me:

I confessed it as a sin to God, and pleaded with him to forgive me.

I pleaded--not just asked, but pleaded--with him for two reasons:

1. Without his help, I was going to be overtaken. When your anxiety manifests itself physically, it's pretty much got you. I needed help, being utterly unable to help myself or overcome my circumstances. People who are desperate don't simply ask for help; they plead.

2. I saw my anxiety for what it really was: a deep and insidious challenge to God's faithfulness to me. That might sound harsh, especially given the context (come on... how insidious can a spelling bee be?). Nevertheless, God had proven himself to be nothing but capable, near, and present in my life. Why should I entertain a reality that was anything different? Why would I exchange the truth for a lie? But that's what anxiety tempted me to do, and that's what I indeed was doing. It was like a friend deciding, against all other evidence to the contrary, that his best friend no longer cared for him. That's what I realized I was doing to God. And so I pleaded, if only to get my Friend back.

And that turned the tide in my battle against anxiety. And I remembered that lesson. Well... with God's help.

And so I followed the same tried and true path two nights ago, when, after a day of hunting turkey in Kansas I was lying in my bunk at the cabin in the middle of a mudfield, again just with me and my anxious thoughts. As it turns out, the Spirit of the Living God dwells even in Doug Wood's cabin a few miles north of Delia, Kansas.

So I prayed to see this new task not through my anxious and fearful eyes, but through the eyes of faith that he has so graciously grown in me. Again I confessed and pleaded for forgiveness, throwing myself not dejectedly but boldly down at his feet. I love that place. I know what happens there every time. And it happened again two nights ago, just like it did 15 years ago.

Which takes me back to another aspect of a new chapter. It's not just about learning a new set of needed skills; it's also about applying old lessons.

So this is why I'm closing down my old blog, and starting this one. Here's what I think God is up to: he's teaching me about how to lead, and how to lead as a shepherd, applying the lessons that I've learned as I've followed the Good Shepherd.

Thank you for leading me like a shepherd, Jesus. I am prone to wander. Glad that your rod and staff extend across a few states.