Falling Apart

It seems like everywhere I go or anywhere I get involved with or relationships I "know" are going to last, it seems things just fall apart. Is it me? Have I done something that has caused this bad Ora to surround me, this bad JuJu? Whether it's ministry or personal, I feel like I am "getting in on" things as they are on their way out. Ministries fizzled, people leave the church, students stop attending youth group.Then you have parishioners knit pick the music, the dancing, the chairs, the message, my tie, my lack of tie, hymnals, no hymnals, the coffee, each other! All a pastor seems to have left is how did things get this bad and how can I fix them!  
I don't know about any other pastors, but this one gets tired and discouraged when things fall apart. Now, I can hear you spiritual guys (or ladies) saying all the right things pastors are supposed to say to someone who is discouraged. I know because I have said the same things. Yet, in the middle of the mess, trying to find the right tool to fix everyones problems I end up realizing that my "Fixer" is broken!
When things are falling apart all around me I can be pretty hard on myself. I naturally assume that it's my fault. I tell myself that there was something I could have said, something I could have done, something I shouldn't have said or done! Just that quick, life looks like a circuit board and all the pieces appear to be "the same but different". It's times like these I want to crawl in a hole and hide. I'm sure you have never felt like that, right? I begin to search myself to see what "secret sin" I have hidden that keeps causing everything to come apart. If any of you have done (or do) this you know it is a painstaking task because we will always find something we can always find some secret sin to blame it on. If you say you don't have a secret sin, well, you just found yours! Once located, we try so hard to purge ourselves from the SS as if it's an invading army trying to take over. All the while, things are getting worse all around us! UHHHHggg! Somebody Help!

Psalm 46:10
 "Cease striving and know that I am God; 

Still Small Voice
Elijah, running for his life from Jezebel, ducked into a cave. (That's right, I'm not the only man of God that wants to hide in a hole!) In this cave Elijah had an encounter with God. Wind blew, Earth shook,  and the fire was hot, but God wasn't in it! Dan Stone wrote a book called "The Rest of the Gospel" where he used an illustration of a hurricane for our lives. The bands are like all the chaos in our lives. So much destruction going on that we can't even see our hands in front of our faces at times. Yet, in the center of the storm is the calm, the peace. The eye of a hurricane is also where all the power lies. I think long before Dan Stone put this in his book, God told Elijah the same thing. I think today God is telling me... us the same thing. We need to stay in our Center instead of trying to fix things in the bands.

Sounds ideal right? Now let's life that out. I don't always remember this great truth in the middle of the chaos, mostly it's remembered after I have taken a few blows to the head. God is God and I am not. He is the one found in the still small voice, in the quietness of life. I am the one found out in the storm, come hell or high water, trying to fix everybody else. When I fail at this, I fail decent! But praise God that ministries fizzle, that people leave the church and that relationships ebb away because winds blow, the earth shakes, and fire is certainly hot! Yet, God is God. I leave you with God's question for Elijah;

What are you doing here, Elijah?