Eating my own crow
Most secular people don’t leave a job for a pay cut – especially a pay cut that totaled 64% of your previous total salary. But when God makes it clear that moving forward with such a large pay cut is the next step, you do it.
Living with financial strain
We have never been motivated by money while in ministry. Our motivation has been faithfulness to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to all people, in all places, at all times. So when God called us to Pittsburgh to start a new church that would start more churches, we were prepared to raise financial support and get a second job in order to supplement whatever was necessary. We were blessed to have a sending church already in place in Pittsburgh to help us make the transition.
What we didn’t know was our denomination would change their processes and strategies on us the exact moment we were unpacking our boxes in our new apartment. We also didn’t know how long it would take churches to consider partnering with us financially. Another fact that I never considered was that secular companies might fear to hire a “pastor” to work in their businesses.
Needless to say our first 6+ months on the field were financially embarrassing for my family and especially to me as a man. But we got the hang of getting paid once a month and not having money for anything extra, including the ice cream truck that loved to visit at the convenient bedtime hour for our 2-year-old.
The search for $1.11
A few months into our new normal I was preparing to leave for the evening to teach a preaching class to a group of prospective pastors. As I was packing my bag, I was craving a Diet Pepsi. And by craving, I mean my insides felt like the beast from “Stranger Things” if I couldn’t land a Diet Pepsi now.
Yet, I still had about two weeks until payday, so there was no hope in sight for me to purchase a $1.11 can of Diet Pepsi from the convenient store on my way to class. Then I spotted a quarter on the floor … and that quarter led to two dimes which led to a nickel and four pennies in the couch.
I was overcome with humiliation and pride. I’m a grown man dang it, I thought. If I want a Diet Pepsi, I will get myself a Diet Pepsi! How pitiful is my life that I can’t afford a Diet Pepsi?! God, where are your promises now?? You promised to meet all my needs, but we are so dang poor…
Still short a few cents, I approached the car my parents gave us when we moved. Suddenly I realized this car had belonged to my grandfather, who was notoriously placing $100 or $50 bills in the zipped up seat cushions or arm rests in the car for emergency purposes. What if he placed one in the car and my parents forgot? Immediately I threw my bag down and stripped the interior of the car to pieces, yanking the cushions out of the arm rests, the seats, popping the trunk and flailing the carpet in the air in hopes to find some leftover cash. What I found was 21 cents.
Anger and humiliation
My anger was now seasoned with humiliation, then peppered with pity and doubt. I sat in the car, screaming, “Why are you so cruel, God!?! You would bring me so low that I can’t even provide myself with a Diet Pepsi? I sacrificed a growing church, all of my wants, my desires, everything I loved about my life to follow You to a place I don’t know, where people are nothing like me, and You won’t even give me the money for a Diet Pepsi?! For crying out loud, don’t You see how poor we are?!”
Just then, as my car ignition had started, I heard the Christian radio station. Disgusted, I began searching my CDs for a soundtrack to my well-deserved pity party, when I heard a pastor on the radio preaching on Simeon meeting the infant Jesus (Luke 2). The well-studied and eloquent pastor passionately explained that when Simeon grasped Jesus he, was holding the substance of God’s faithfulness. Faithfulness was no longer a warm and fuzzy concept that we could trivialize. No, Jesus’ physical body in Simeon’s arms was proof that God is faithful to His word.”
Now on top of anger, pity and humiliation, I felt the salt of conviction. My heart broke into pieces that I could treat God with such carelessness, for He had been faithful to me always. I sat in the car and cried my eyes out, wiping at smeared tears, when I heard the announcer.
“You are listening to Reverend Chris Autry, who is starting a new church in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. For more information you can follow him at…”
God’s constant faithfulness
I couldn’t have been any more crushed as I realized that the preacher on the radio was me. I had preached that sermon four months earlier at a church in Pittsburgh and they had submitted it to the local Christian radio station. I had just been convicted by my own sermon! How much lower could my life get?
God is so powerful, that He allowed my pity party of doubt and screams of rage to happen at the exact moment the radio was replaying a sermon I preached four months ago.
If there was ever a walk of shame for pastors, I walked one a few minutes later as I went into the church to teach future Pastors. Don’t miss the hypocrisy of this moment.
Upon my arrival, I noticed our finance guy was in the church office. This was unusual as he was typically out of town for business on Mondays, but since his appointment was rescheduled, he stopped by the church that evening to balance the books.
As I walked in the door with my head hung low, he called me to the office to give me some mail. I opened it to find an encouraging note and a check for $1000. God’s reminder of the reality of His faithfulness was a thousand times greater than I had hoped.
Sometimes, we can allow our emotional sins to flood us with mental brokenness especially in a season of uncertainty. Let us in this time savor the substance of God’s faithfulness as He gives it to us by His grace and sovereignty. Don’t allow your frustrations and bleak circumstances to blind you from the obvious faithfulness of God.
Chris Autry is pastor of Faith Community Church in Barre, VT.