We resume our study of the three stages of a man’s (or woman’s) life by look at God’s grace and provision for us as we sought to heal.
I worked the Christmas rush at a U.S. post office. It was a six day-a-week, ten hours per day job. Having been a pencil pusher so long, I was out of shape. I was dragging those six weeks.
One evening at church I sat behind a man who owned a construction business. Finding out that I was unemployed, he offered me a job. I was grateful. Only a couple of days into this new job this Christian boss told me about a man who had a Christian vision for Business as Missions in India and needed to write a book. He needed a composition guy. I became his comp guy. He provided the ideas and concepts and I transposed his voice into words on paper. That lasted for six months. Income from this work helped me make the rent on our 900-square foot, newlywed apartment.
Then I became a greeter in a car agency – Berger Chevy on 28th Street in Grand Rapids. This employment gave me many opportunities to witness and was a natural outlet for my gift for gab and compassion for people with car troubles. But I wondered, “Is ministry a thing of the past, Lord? Is it over? Am I washed up?”
Marilyn was asked to substitute teach at a Christian school. One of the teachers, a pillar of the faculty, had rarely been sick. But then she was hit pretty hard. “Mrs. Kaynor, can you teach tomorrow also?” The teacher came back too soon and needed to return to the hospital. “Mrs. Kaynor, can you finish the month please?” Then it was, “Can you finish the semester?” She did. Again God had provided. And God will provide for you, dear unemployed worker, recovering pastor or wounded Christian. You will have to seek employment. You will have to be diligent, but God will provide.
Slowly, slowly, God began to heal us. Believers with more faith may have healed faster. Marilyn came to realize that our current austerity budget was not temporary, but training for the future. Always thrifty, God allowed us even tighter discipline in this area (because He was about to bless us in more important areas).
What did we learn? What have believers down through the millennia learned? That God is gracious, kind and faithful. Blessed education. It’s as though each new day Jesus is standing with arms outstretched – showing His nail-pierced hands – saying, “Let’s try it again.” By such patience and kindness, He conquers the wildness in our lives and prepares us to worship him throughout eternity.
After eight months in the car agency (by June, 1999), the senior pastoral ministry was off our radar. We had been through the cycle enough times to sense that God was closing that door. A couple in Seattle encouraged us to consider Action International Ministries, a mission where they volunteered. I was sensing God’s direction toward missions. So was Marilyn, but she was concerned about
money. The Lord of the harvest was at work. In the normal course of her devotional reading, she came to I Peter 1:13. “Prepare your minds for ACTION . . .” (emphasis added). Granted, we took action out of context. But the timing of reading this verse was rather confirming, wouldn’t you say?
ACTION and Moving to Seattle In April, 2000, still recuperating and feeling vulnerable, we joined Action International Ministries, agreeing to serve in MemberCare and by writing a newsletter. Becoming genuine Actionites would be advanced by a period of residency near the U.S.A. office in the Seattle, Washington, area. So we moved west in 2000. Marilyn became a teacher at the school from which our sons had graduated.
Since we had Marilyn’s income from teaching, we began to travel immediately and our education in missions began. Between 2000 and 2011, we traveled 21 times to foreign nations to serve, listen, teach and visit ACTION missionaries. How gracious God has been to allow us to see what He is doing in the world.
Guess whose life situation had changed, resulting in him now being the janitor at the school where Marilyn was teaching? The man who engineered our departure from the Seattle area church. He saw Marilyn every day and was very nice, but never admitted any wrong. Had we really forgiven him? Were we free to love all people?
By 2004 it became clear that we would never gain full missionary support. Now that we had become sufficiently familiar with ACTION, the Lord graciously arranged for us to return to northeast Detroit (near our dear Macomb congregation) to serve as Mission-ary and MemberCare Pastor at a local church. We continue to serve ACTION remotely as well.
Spirit Connection The warrior relates most completely to life through his body – what he can do (provide for his family, protect, coach, fix, serve, sports), improperly providing most of his identity.
When a man’s body breaks down, he can’t run as fast as he could 20 years ago. A woman does not care how fast she can run because she connects with people through emotional warmth, communication and spirit. Women generally are ahead of us men.
The recovered warrior who has moved on to Wisdomville needs to be braced for the reality that he may be ignored. Our society – even the evangelical church society – does not value wisdom from recovered warriors. God’s people are sufficiently goal-oriented that the experience of the healed-warrior-turned-wisdom is ignored. Activities and programs push past such wisdom and it is lost, eclipsed by the current effort.
But unbothered by the lead women have and the lack of attention from warriors, the wisdom man realizes that spirit is the great connection with God and people. It is there that he concentrates. The ish man is the royal man. We were created to rule over the earth. Because of sin, we lost that. This ruling capacity was somewhat restored in salvation. It is more restored in the ish man.
Sin has so damaged us that we get smarter very slowly. At great price the ish man has arrived at insight about himself. He knows himself – who he is and who he isn’t.
The man who moves on to rule his soul in wisdom before God enters a new fulfilling period. The wisdom phase produces a man’s greatest contributions and achievements. It is here that a man builds a spiritual legacy. He has an aura of godliness that becomes the most important part of the inheritance that he hands on to his sons, daughters and grandchildren.
Action Applications
Possibly the reader is in the warrior phase. Prepare yourself for the future by carefully studying Biblical biographies. Soak yourself in their lives. Notice how they were stressed, what God did, how they grew and how fruitful they were in their wisdom phase. Expect God’s maturing process. You may have a wounding phase ahead of you.
Possibly the reader is wounded. Angry. Smoldering over an injustice. Life can deal us some terrible blows. Life was not fair for Jesus and it will not be fair for you. But “Guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life.” Attitude is everything. Scripture warns, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Instead of pushing people away and isolating yourself, respond to the grace God brings you by trusting, resting and welcoming old friends in new and deeper ways. To become bitter will defile your children and grandchildren and rob yourself of God’s presence.
Possibly you know someone who is stuck in woundedville. Think of his name. You care about him. But he is on strike, demanding that God explains his suffering to him. He has walked away from Christ and His church. Maybe he has walked away from his wife. He has
isolated himself. If failing faith had an odor, none would enjoy being with him.
Help your friend see this WWW pattern in the Bible. Remind him of these five men who had enormously fruitful wisdom periods after they emerged from their woundedness. Encourage him that God still loves him and challenge that man (or woman) to trust Him. Urge your Mr. Wounded to re-new his obedience to God. Show him God’s purpose in his pain. Tell him of the freedom to be gained by ceasing to compete. Tell him he does not have to struggle to win because we can all win by obeying and enjoying the Lord Jesus Christ.
P.S. This booklet was published in 2011. As we send it out in March, 2024, on our website, a lot has happened since it was published.
First, we have treasured friends in Lynnwood, Washington, the place where we were humiliated. Most of the congregation favored us during those difficult days of 1987-1994. We visit there annually.
We have sought out the man who was so difficult for us three times, and we have been pleasant to each other.
When we left, many of the Deacons and workers also left, and the remaining 15 people could not carry the church. They sold the building.
Second, when I worked as a greeter in a car agency after our time in Waterloo (1999), I prayed several times with the Christian owner. We have kept up with each other and he has been very, very generously, the point being that God knew what He was doing by sending me into that car agency. Even though it looked like a detour –and raised the fear that I was washed up; out of the ministry–it was not wasted time in God’s economy.
Third, I am sorry to say that we would be only viewed and welcomed as any other visitor were we to visit again in Walnut Creek or Waterloo. Not every chapter closes positively.
However we are richly blessed to have served with Action International Ministries in MemberCare for over two decades. Numerous trips to Cuba to teach the Bible have been most nourishing. What a privilege to be with those saints. We find deep satisfaction in coming along side missionaries via WhatApp, Signal, email, snail-mail and visits to mission fields. And our family is a source of encouragement. We get to teach a class for young marrieds at our local church. How gracious God has been to us, as He is to all who pursue Him.
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