The whole time, both Janet and I were wondering what God ight have for us in all that we are experiencing now.  I am in a struggle to find a new place where my abilities and my passions can be utilized.  I have “held out” on taking something “less” (the biggest “less” is “less money”.  It is not a matter of “less worthy work”.  It is a matter of “appropriate work” according to where I can do the most good.  X number of hours in  “temp jobs” is x number hours NOT spent moving that much quicker to the goal.  But, t he amount of time spent “searching” and “making contacts and inquiries” is more debt as bills continue to come.  Low paying work will “stem the tide”,  and yet we will remain behind,  and slip further behind,  albeit more slowly,  and also move toward the next rightful place at that much of a slower pace.  It’s a very scary catch 22,  and I keep wondering where “faith” and “reason” and “what the best course” all meet;  what the best balance is.

Bruce Almighty didn’t deal much with the vocation issue,  even though it was career anxiety that precipatated the whole crisis of faith that drove Bruce to question God so enthusiastically ,  exclaiming “Smite me O Great Smiter”.  The whole deal was God saying “You think you can do this,  give it a shot”.  Me,  I just try to find a way to play the role I feel God is preparing me to play,  to do a good that needs doing in the great scheme of things;  which may well be a small local thing.  But when does one know when what one has come to know as “common sense” is deceptive and actually a barrieir to our hearing God’s call?  The Field of Dreams story takes us on a journey around and into those questions. 

I’m not questioning God,  I’m struggling with how to decide what advice I’m going to heed.  What will function as “signs” and what will be identified as “deception”?  I live in a world,  it seems,  where what God might want is circumvented by OTHERS.  I don’t know if what I’ve done to this point was right.  It doesn’t seem so.  So how much hardship is due to “being faithful” and suffering “persecution”, a nd how much of it is just deluding myself into this scenario of a “great mission at great cost” so that I can convince myself to incur larger debt in order to avoid having to “do something less fulfilling” for a time (and the length of time involved there is highly uncertain).  Is it a real “vision” , or is it self-deception?