"IF GOD CAN BE EXPERIENCED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE..."
Monday, December 22, 2008
By Travis Franklin
If God can be experienced in the middle of nowhere, then God can be experienced in the middle of everywhere.
I have come to claim and own the meaning of this truth. I have been in the middle of nowhere many times. The middle of nowhere is that time and place in life when all that we thought or believed seemed to no longer matter. I remember as a boy scout attending a retreat at a farm where I had never been before. While I was there I wanted to earn my stalking merit badge. The stalking merit badge was earned by stalking a higher ranking scout or leader while hiking across a variety of terrain. If at any point the ranking scout or leader saw you the hike was ended and you had failed to stalk well enough to earn the merit badge. The scout leader began his hike from our base camp and as he entered the forest I began to stalk him carefully from a distance so as not to be seen. I continued to stalk him quietly and with great stealth so he would not see me or sense that I was on his trail. I hadn’t been stalking him very long before I lost him in the woods. No matter where I looked I could not find him nor pick up his trail. After several futile attempts to re-connect with him I gave up. It was then that I realized that I was in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nowhere you lose touch with where you are and what you know. In the middle of nowhere nothing was familiar to me anymore. Everything I saw was strange, different, and out of place. In the middle of nowhere I had no reference points, nothing that could guide me or direct me to where I needed to go next. In the middle of nowhere you simply are lost. I was in the middle of nowhere and I was lost.
I have been in the middle of nowhere many times in my life spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. I remember when my parents divorced and my father left the ministry. In response to such actions in my family I simple became lost. Nothing made sense to me anymore. Who was I apart from the only family I had come to know and love for 22 years? I was in the middle of nowhere. I remember when my father committed suicide. I was 33 years old, married, pastoring 3 rural churches in west Texas, with 2 small children. I became lost again. Nothing seemed right. The person who was my mentor in ministry, my hero, my guide, the person that I knew loved me for who I was now was gone and I was lost. I couldn’t find the handle on anything. I was numb and in shock. I kept searching but not finding. I reached but I could not hold onto anything or anyone. I almost lost my marriage. My church didn’t know who I was. I was in the middle of nowhere. Just recently my wife divorced me and I left a position in the church that I loved where I had served for 12 years. I felt alone. I had no place anymore. The life I had lived for 12 years no longer fit. I no longer knew who I was or where I should be. All that had defined my life for the past 12 years was strange or gone. Every day I seemed to go through the motions of a life that I no longer understood. Meaning and purpose were lost and I struggled at best to get through the next minute let alone the next hour or the next day. My life felt isolated as if I was alone on an island watching the ships go by and the activity of life on the far shore with no connection. I sat strangely on the shore and for hours just stared at the meaningless activity with little reference at all to what it all meant. I was in the middle of nowhere, lost, and alone.
And yet, in each of these experiences in the middle of nowhere somehow, in some way God found me. In my parent’s divorce it was the love, acceptance, and dogged persistence of a church and youth group that loved me in spite of myself. They loved me back to God and to the power of somewhere. In my father’s suicide it was a wife that would not quit on me, friends that listened and loved me, a church that allowed me to openly grieve my father’s death and be the human being I was. God used them to gently guide me to life and ministry once again. I was led back to the wonder of somewhere. When my wife left and gave up on 24 years of our life together my children struggled with me. Friends, my family, the church continued to remind me that I was a person of worth loved by God. In a time of great despair it was a small rural church that was hurting too that accepted my brokenness and walked with me through the valley of hurt, separation, and pain to that somewhere that I desperately needed once again to find. It was the yes of another congregation who was willing to take a chance on a pastor that was damaged goods. It was the love of a friend who never gave up on me and made me believe in life and love again until I found the somewhere of my life again.
Oh yes, I have been in the middle of nowhere many times in many different ways in many different forms. I know what it is to be lost. I know the pain of being hurt. I have experienced the reality of death and being left behind by someone you love. I have been to the place where nothing looks right, feels right, seems right, or makes sense anymore. I know what it is to simply realize you don’t care much about anyone or anything. I know what it is to feel worthless, discarded, forgotten, and alone. I know the signs all too well.
But I also know what it is to be loved. I know the power of having people listen and never give up on you despite what you feel, think, say, and experience. I have experienced the power of God’s love coming out of nowhere to find me and embrace me, and just nestle me in the arms and hold of graceful love that has overpowered me to the point of not knowing what to say except to just cry and cry and cry and cry until you wonder how many more tears can there possibly be. I know what it is life to have people say yes to you when all you can think about and prepare for is when they will say no. Oh, yes while I have been to the haunting place of nowhere I have always discovered there through the love and grace of God the way back to somewhere. I guess that is why I am writing on this web page. I want to remind us all that God is in the middle of nowhere my friends. And if God is in the middle of nowhere than God must be in the middle of everywhere!
By the way, that day in the middle of nowhere on that farm trying to stalk that leader. After about 45 minutes of tromping through the woods lost I heard something in front of me, I stopped and moved behind a tree near a clearing in front of me and waited. No sooner than I had stopped than into the clearing in front of me came bounding out the scout leader. I stepped out from my tree and inquired how much longer did I have to keep stalking him. Surprised and perplexed he asked, “How did you get in front of me?” I smiled and said, “Lucky I guess.” He shook my hand and said, “Congratulations you have just earned your stalking merit badge.” Funny things happen in the middle of nowhere.
Travis