The Angry Disciple

Why must you be such an angry young man? Your future looks quite bright to me!
From “Fooling Yourself” by Styx.

We’ve all met angry disciples. In fact, we’ve each been one. But angry ministry-types embarrass us and, when we join their ranks, we feel guilty about it. What’s with all the anger? We can never be happy unless we follow God’s call. The opposite of happy is depressed. Depression focused outward onto others (like God) is anger.

In my last two posts, I wrote that being called into the ministry is like being diagnosed with a fatal disease because, in order to accept the calling, we must first grieve. Every time we start down a path, at some level, we must grieve the loss of the paths not taken. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression/fear, and finally (hopefully) acceptance/peace. In this post, I want to talk about anger.

An angry disciple has moved past denial. She knows she’s been called by God to ministry… there is no ambiguity. But she hasn’t said yes. In fact, she might even follow Jonas’ example and head as fast as she can in the opposite direction. Call it rebellion. Call it sowing your wild oats. Call it what you want. It’s perfectly natural, but not exactly faithful. I should know… I tried it.

My wife Becky and I got engaged while we were in college. Everybody had warned me that, if I didn’t get married before entering ministry, I was in for a difficult path. Therefore, I pursued finding a spouse with a single-minded sense of purpose. I had many, many first dates. This is how they all ended, usually around 7:30 p.m.:
“So what are you doing after college?”
Seminary.
“What’s that?”
Grad school for ministers.
“Gee… it’s getting late, can you take me home?”

Anger.

Becky was the first woman I met who was actually impressed, so I proposed. After I graduated, Becky had three more years to go. We both felt having two people in school while starting a marriage was a bad idea, so I decided to work for three years and save some money while Becky finished school.

Then I had to decide which job I should look for. I ended up with two jobs: One working for the Boy Scouts of America, and the other as a part-time youth pastor. Both jobs made sense to the DCOM, because they both had obvious relationships with my calling. But in the back of my head, I was always thinking: “If this situation is fulfilling enough for me, maybe I can just run with it.” I was looking for a way to do it half-way. I wanted to do… whatever I wanted to do! But yet, this struggle for freedom from God didn't make me happy. I alternated between anger and depression.

After a year or so of this, I began to look at my job as a trade-off. I wasn’t doing as much ministry as I knew I should, but I was getting paid well, and the money tempered the sense of dissatisfaction. I began to wonder if more money would temper more dissatisfaction. In other words, I was leaving anger behind and entering into bargaining, which will be the topic of my next post.