Lament of a Pastor

I am stuck between two worlds. I hang in the balance between two cities. I am being forced to choose between two paths. I have walked the tight rope of waiting these past many months, but the live, forced, and momentous decision is upon me.

God, why have you left me here to dangle on this string? 
Knowing you can rescue but haven’t is what causes the sting.

The comfort of my current context calls me to contentment, 
but there is a fire that fuels the fight for future fulfillment.
I do not want my motivation to be a push from my past, 
but a pull towards my purpose. 
My present place is no longer palatable. 

Why do you delay and let your church unravel? 
Each day is like traveling barefoot across gravel.

The current kingdom is being sacked. 
My instinct has been to fight while others seem to flee or fall. 
Some bid me run while others beg remain. 
“God, what do you want?” has been my refrain. 
One thing God has opened my eyes to see, 
“I’m not the boy I once was, but I’m not yet the man I will be.”

I know that you are good, does that mean the problem is me? 
Sinking in the abyss is there no fish to rescue from the sea?

God does not grant the certainty of place, 
But only the promise that comes by faith. 
In faith I am looking forward to the city that has foundations, 
who’s designer and builder is God.

All this time I thought I was running and swimming across the sea, 
but God in his providence was the one who was caring me. 

Whether I should stay or go I still do not know, 
but my desires are now decisive. 
My heart is set on pilgrimage. 
I am still tied to the time of tents and not temples, 
the transient and temporal have not yet terminated into the eternal. 
If God is with me in the going, I will not stop roaming 
for “better is one day in your courts than a thousands elsewhere. 
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God then dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

I would despair unless I see God in the land of the living 
But now I know it’s only begun, my fathers full giving.
The wicked and courage-less will look on and see my vindication, 
for God alone and no man has become my salvation. 
I will live and not die as I declare your marvelous deeds,
for your everlasting love runs deeper than our creeds.
I believed things about you that are true by the hearing of the ear, 
but now my eyes behold the God, once far off, now near.