All human suffering is Kingdom Training. Some we submit to voluntarily — unnecessarily, as it were — but it all serves to train into our minds the instinctive recognition this world is fallen. When we realize it can’t be fixed, we focus rightly on God fixing us, and fixing others through us.

How true, Ed. Good point.

Thanks for reminding me how stale and stagnant I feel I have become sometimes… I find it interesting however that the times I’ve grown the most in my life and in my faith have been the times of my greatest conflicts. Times of pain and struggle have a way of bringing about growth that wouldn’t occur any other way. That makes me live in a constant state of nervousness…

True. I suppose nervousness helps too, right? If so, I think I am certainly with you on that one and we must be in great shape for growth!

Tim, you may be in ‘transition” now?

This is a simplistic, but helpful model:

Life has cycles - we have long periods of stable growth focused in a unified direction, with short periods of regrouping and reordering our priorities. As children, the regrouping happens around 5 to 7, around 12 (onset of puberty) and 17. In between these short periods of regrouping, there are years of growth.

As adults, there is regrouping around 21, 27, 32, 38, 43, 49, 55, 62, 70 etc. These regrouping years can be as short as 8 months or as long as two years, and the stable growth periods are four to seven years long. And, events in life can move the regrouping around - death of loved ones, divorce, layoffs or businesss closures. You may hear these stages called “post-Piaget” stages (Piaget labeled the first three Piaget 1, Piaget 2, Piaget 3).

When generations coincide there are huge economic growths. The dot-com boom was the syzygy of Silents, Boomers and X-ers all having a long growth at the same time. The business world works on the stable growth periods. “Work” is mostly work. A little brain effort and lots of sweat.

The spirit world works on the transitions. An old teaching program called “Basic Youth Conflicts” by Bill Gothard dealt with the Piaget 2 to 3 transition. The Jesus movement was Boomers and Silents transitioning at the same time. Experiencing God, another successful program, was the Silents and Boomers transitioning at the same time, it rose and fell rapidly (like many periods with multiple generational coinciding). And, the emerging movement is the Boomers and X-ers transitioning at the same time.

Business tends to be better in the second half of a decade, and if you can focus on work, and make a lot of money, the surplus will carry you through the transition period (when the work goes away) giving you clear thinking, and the ability to set yourself up for another stable growth period. This period will allow you to “do your own thing”, while the savings allow you to maintain your habits like eating and sleeping indoors.

At 54, it was easy to retire because it’s a natural age to rething what you want to do. Also, the dot com bust was hitting, so spending a lot of time on church planting was a good use of the time. I learned a lot quickly, then spent time doing the work, so I could see what works. Then I grabbed a retirement job, just doing steady work, but collecting and organizing my thoughts for the next transition in 18 months (62). I’ll either go into engineering at that point (2009) or hold off and drive trains for another half-dozen years and go into engineering at 70.

I am working on an unusual ministry that is unique, but slow to implement, since it involves both a lot of volunteers (inefficient to connect with) and some “standard” concepts applied to an unusual setting.

Wow, Mike, your analyses continue to amaze me, as always. So you intentionally plan transitions in your life based on projected transition times? Just curious: what happens if you transition during a non-transition time?

There have been some very erudite comments full of insight. I thought I’d toss my hat into the ring with a slightly different (and much more basic) line of thinking.

The last two years or so have been hellacious. People ask me why I keep at it. It’s almost impossible for an unbeliever to understand, but here are my thoughts on climbing those mountains and wading through struggles:

1) Know for what purpose God made you. This goes beyond the obvious “to give Him glory.” God has a vision or (to use a Wilkinsonion phrase) a “Big Dream” for everyone’s life. What is His dream for your life? I have a twelve session counseling course I use to help people discover that.

2) Realign your life to fulfill that purpose. I’ve found that, more often than not, in my life the transitions that Mike talked about are necessary because I’ve lost sight of the Dream. I have to realign myself to God’s vision and plan which can be painful.

3) Keep moving toward the Vision God has given you. “Without vision, the people run amok.” It’s that vision before me that causes me to take the next step, and the next, despite the pain, despite the fatigue. Along the way I find small oases and moments of respite. But for the most part it’s one long painful climb. It’s the compelling nature of the Vision that keep me pressing on.

May be simplistic, may not even apply to your situation. But that’s my experience and macro view of struggle and how to deal with them.

I think that’s helpful, Jason. I think the problem is in the details of it. I believe I have some sense of God’s overall call for me, but at times the details seem to elude or deceive me. It is easy to run off course, as you say!

When circumstances change when life is “even”, it’s usually a good time to jump on to something new, early. Then, I can focus on the new job or career. But, if I am in a transition phase, I try to “run a job to the end”, and get the layoff (often the last person to turn out the lights at a company). Then I have time to do the transition well.

I’ll grab a “goober job” that will let me think and collect my thoughts, while laying the plans for a good job, in a year or so. If you focus and spend the time, the transition phases can take less than a year (and be pretty “well-baked”). Otherwise, if you are tied up with a lot of work things, church things, relationship things,… it can take two or more years, and be “half-baked”, taking more time to iron out the details.

As Jason says, Vision is important. Like a balanced diet, a balanced spirit is essential. I think we’ve all had projects or jobs, where we got free pizza or burgers, or some other repetitive food, to keep us on task. After a week of this, we give up and go out for a salad, or tacos. Similarly, spirituality ranges along a spectrum of basics like optimism, creativity and relationship, that exist in all (healthy) religions and a theology that portrays a specific description of God and His paradigms. And everything in between.

Spiritually-mature vision has a discipline component, that keeps you pointing in the right direction. Even though you are working in a “more basic” realm of spirituality, vision keeps you pointed in the right direction.

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