I had a restlessness inside of me. Note: had. Past tense. I was driving around on my lunch break, delivering some photos to a client and dropping in at a book shop, and I was angsty. All uptight inside. Almost angry. Certainly unsettled, probably unpleasant. All morning I have been thinking about church, about community and authenticity and perpetuating the way we’ve always done things and about the challenges that lie ahead. Thinking about it as though I were propping up a dead horse. Longing for a community I could “know with”, think with, be myself with. Be open with.

And in the midst of this is the question of vocation, of calling. I have been wrestling with the idea of, and question of a vocation for over a year now. This sense of God having a great big fishing lure lodged just below my rib cage, and he is pulling me in. But I don’t want a vocation! I don’t want to be ordained in any denomination. I don’t want to be ordained - it just doesn’t fit with my current thinking in terms of ministry, the kingdom, a life of discipleship and servanthood.

And so I prayed. Driving back down Sydney Road, I prayed. I ranted and raved, it all poured out like a poem. I’m trusting in the fact that people with hands free mobiles must look like that all the time, so no one will have paid much attention to this guy driving along shouting and pointing and ranting. Ahh, the twenty-first century. What would I do without it?

I told God of my angst, of my agony. Of my longings and achings, my limitations, frustrations and doubts. And I finished in the prayer I learned from a good friend of mine: “if you lead… when you lead, I will follow. Where you lead, I will follow.” God is used to accommodating me, my short comings, my weaknesses, so I trust he heard not just my words, but the aching that lay behind them.

When I got back to my computer, I opened up a window to write down the poem.

Nothing. Finito. Zip. Nada.

Nothing.

Nothing but peace. A deep, deep peace.

Hallelujah.