Lately I have been calling myself “Job lite” because of some trials I have been going through. While my trials are nowhere near what Job went through (he lost everything except his wife and his life) and nothing in comparison to what Christians in the middle east and in China are going through…for me, its been pretty severe. I lost my ministry first, then I lost my health, then my job and finally my identity. While none of these were particularly severe, going though all this in the last 5 years, seeming at the same time, has been difficult. I ended up quite angry at God over the whole ordeal. The fact is, however, I have no right to be angry. I should be considering it “pure joy” as the book of James proclaims in Chapter 1 verse 2. For me, I think the temptation to dump the whole thing, that is Christianity, jumped into my life. Thank God, I couldn’t imagine doing such a thing, and the verse from John chapter 6, verse 68 came alive to me. After Jesus’ “difficult statement” that caused many disciples to leave, Peter said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”

I did not want to go back to the world and the futility of their thinking. This fact has become painfully obvious to me as I grew old. I may not like what God is doing to me, but I really don’t want to leave either. All across America, people are leaving the church and leaving God in record numbers. Just like in Europe, “cultural Christians” are losing their faith because the culture in changing. As this culture changes, tolerance of us will change too and we will experience real persecution.

One big difference between myself and Job, is that Job didn’t do anything to deserve his trial. I on the other hand absolutely do. Through the whole experience, I have been made painfully aware of sins that I had not realized I had. I will confess one to you all. I am a workaholic. This was quite an eye opener to me, because since I was a little boy, I have always thought I was a lazy person. When I was in second grade, my teacher thought I was “developmentally disabled” and didn’t belong in the same class with the other kids. She demanded that I be examined by a psychologist. The psychologist gave me an intelligence test, and discovered, much to their surprise, that I have an above average intelligence. So why then was I doing so poorly in school? They couldn’t figure it out, so they told me that I was “just lazy” and needed to buckle down and get some work done. I believed this lie for my entire life, until just recently. I am not lazy, I just need to do things a little differently than everyone else. Once I figured this out, at the age of 19, I started becoming a workaholic. One of my teachers in the technical school I went to told me “a lazy technician is a good technician” and I need to apply my smarts to a problem instead of grinding away at something with hard work. Needless to say, I applied this principal, and became pretty successful. This, along with my ambition, turned me into a workaholic. In 1993, I was laid off from IBM, and got a job in NYC. As a result, I spent over 12 hours away a day, every day, from my family. Even when I transferred to Westchester, I still spent over 12 hours a day away from my family even though my commute was cut in half. My kids tell me I would come home every day, exhausted, and would turn off my brain, and just watched the idiot box until I went to bed. When I was forced to retire 2 years ago, I felt I had lost my identity. Even now, I still don’t feel right unless I am working. I came home, and found that my family was in shambles.

What I am supposed to do now, I am not sure. I would ask the reader to pray for me for wisdom from God. I really need it. They call retirement the “golden years”, and that we should relax and bask in the light of our accomplishments. I think this is a lie from the pit of hell, at least for me. Not only is there no “gold”, but I realized that some of my “accomplishments” were made at the expense of my family.