When God moves….there’s often not a moment to think or breathe.

I realize the “Strength to Strength” series appears to have abruptly ended.  My apologies if you were regularly visiting and reading.  I actually still have a few thoughts on that subject I wish to share…probably in the weeks ahead.

The abrupt interruption is because life happened…all of a sudden, and way faster than anticipated.

In Exodus, when God is prepping His people for the final round of plagues before they are to be released from Egypt, He spends some moments going into intricate details about the Passover (“Pesach”) and how it is to be celebrated for generations to come.  Throughout all the instructions, one theme comes to the surface repeatedly (in addition to the obvious themes of redemption, atonement, etc.) – that is URGENCY!  The bread is to be cooked without leaven, they are to eat all of the sacrificed lamb, they are to have their bags “packed and ready” as it were.   Because, when God says “Go”, there will be no time for wasting, and no time for “lolly-gagging” (as they say in the hills :)

Charlotte, NC has been home to Tina and I for the last 8-ish years.  We’ve experienced joys and challenges in our time in Charlotte, and through it all it has been home for us.  We fully expected to be in Charlotte for years and years to come.

But then God moved.

It’s a long and circuitous story, so I’ll do my best to condense it down.  Long story short, Tina and I are moving to Nashville, TN, and with literally no time to spare.

While in college, Tina and I had this fools’ hope dream to live in Nashville someday – I would become a session player and she would work in studio production.  Nice dream, I guess, until it runs into the uncompromising wall of reality.  In this case, that reality was God’s providence and calling.  I ended up in seminary and both of us on very different career tracks than anticipated.  But that’s often how God works.  Since those changes, we never, ever expected realistically to be Nashville residents.

In May of this year (2015), we spent a week in Nashville for a conference for Church Instrumental Directors.  We enjoyed the visit, the fellowship, and the city, but again viewed it just as a nice trip.   With one difference…a lingering sense that this place felt kind of like home.  One of those kind of indefinable sensations you get – similar to what we felt the first time we visited Charlotte.  I guess it was one of the seeds God deposited in us for this upcoming upheaval.

Then, late spring and early summer hit with an unexpected showdown between my father in law and skin cancer.  We entered into a season (7-8 weeks) of chemo and radiation, involving multiple trips to Titusville, FL and a great deal of fretting and uncertainty, yet also a very real and latent confidence in the Goodness of God.  Right at midway in that battle, when things were pretty desperate and bleak, Tina and I had the simultaneous conviction that God may be uprooting us from Charlotte.  We felt, practically, maybe it was to move us to Florida to be closer to our parents.  That made a lot of sense, though the prospect of moving back to Florida (no offense to our families and all of our wonderful friends in Florida!) didn’t sit well with either of us.

Enter Gideon.

Those who are familiar with Gideon’s story in the book of Judges know that Gideon was confronted with a very unsettling call of God to help deliver his people from oppression.  To “test” God, and I suppose to verify Gideon, himself, wasn’t crazy he devised a “fleece” faith test.  (you can read all about it here).  So, I devised my own fleece test.  I determined to apply for every applicable IT position in the central FL area for the final 3 weeks of Dad’s radiation.  If ANY of the doors opened, I would enter and trust in the providence of God, that it was His supernatural doing.  If three weeks past and nothing happened – we’d leave it alone.

Two weeks passed, and no responses.  And then on a whim, I entered a new search term in my job criteria on Indeed.com, and of the two positions on the East coast that were listed, one popped up for “Office Support Engineer – Warby Parker”, in where else?   Nashville, TN.

Side Note – Warby Parker (www.warbyparker.com) has been one of my favorite companies for the last year.  Awesome eyeglasses, awesome price, awesome social giveback model, awesome customer experience, awesome, awesome.  When I saw the listing my jaw dropped.  I texted Tina and she said I should apply – just to see.  I did, in a hurry, and honestly not expecting much.

That was a Friday.   And here’s where it gets weird.

The following Wednesday I was driving home from Titusville after spending a few days with Dad as he was getting chemo and radiation.  A little weary and frustrated, somewhere around Savannah, GA, the thought came to mind to just pray out loud my questions and frustrations.  So I did, not caring who saw me or what they thought.  It was a long, rambling prayer to the effect of  “Jesus, please heal Dad.  And Jesus, I don’t know what you have for me and Tina, or where you want us.  So, WHERE do you want us?  Will you please open the door and just make it so obvious.  We’ll go there….Amen.”

Not five minutes later my email notification dinged.  It was the Tech Recruiter from Warby Parker.  “OK…that was weird”  I thought to myself out loud….still being in out loud mode.

The following day we talked on the phone for 20 minutes.  The day after that I talked on the phone with the Technical Services Manager in NYC – this is exactly a week after applying.  The following Tuesday, 3 video conferences with Tech staff in NYC, and the following Friday (2 weeks after applying) – 2 more video conferences with Nashville staff.  This was the “clincher” round of interviews.

That was a Friday – that was also the final day of Dad’s radiation treatments (remember my fleece!).  I can’t make this stuff up.

What follows that Friday has literally been a whirlwind.  A flight to Manhattan to meet the Warby Parker staff (including directors, CTO, and one of the co-CEOs), a job offer, a rushed house sale, a contract (this weekend), a REALLY rushed closing date, and literally no time to think or breathe.  It’s like Pesach/Passover – except we’re not leaving bondage, we’re simply be relocated on God’s playing field.

And an interesting footnote – during all of this, I had thought to myself and had expressed to Tina that I believed the way God would work in this was we would be confronted with a single option (in this case, Warby Parker).  It would be a simple yes or no decision.  God would then confirm that choice (“yes”) by revealing another Florida option that would just THEN become available, after the fact.  In other words, he’d hold all other possibilities at bay.

So, the following Monday after I accepted the offer, I was going about my business and I received a phone call.  It was from the first place in Florida that I had applied, and probably the Florida job that would’ve been the most interesting to me.  They wanted to schedule an interview.  Oh my!   And then, just to show how amazing God’s timing is, the person on the phone asked if I ever received their email to schedule the interview – it was sent on the previous Thursday (when I was flying to Manhattan to receive the job offer).

I never received that email.

It was simply like God made that email disappear into cyberspace, knowing that had I received it, it would have complicated my decision-making.

When God Moves… you often aren’t ready, expecting, or prepared.

That certainly has been the case.  But God is proving faithful at every step, and literally every day has a new provision being handed out.   We’re learning about manna and daily reliance on God, all over again.

There are still oh so many uncertainties, questions, and unknowns, but God has certainly built/re-built our faith in this process.   We appreciate your prayers, and certainly have felt the visceral impact of those prayers in the past.   I’m going to cut this short now, but will certainly post any new developments in this crazy transition.

I guess if I could leave you with one parting thought it’s this – don’t get comfortable!  The journey of faith (whether it involves physical relocations or not) is one that is meant to keep us on our toes.  It’s never promised to be easy or stress-free, but there is this amazing promise from Jesus Himself that His “yoke is easy” and His “burden is light”.  In all the craziness, I can tell you with certainty – His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame,and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
(From Hebrews 12, NIV)

Much love in Christ – Jeremy & Tina