I read this great quote this morning in DA Carson's, The Cross and Christian Ministry.  This is the kind of punch to the gut I need every morning as a church planter.

"Western evangelicalism tends to run through cycles of fads.  At the moment, books are pouring off the presses telling us how to plan for success, how 'vision' consists in clearly articulated 'ministry goals,' how the knowledge of detailed profiles of our communities constitutes the key to successful outreach.  I am not for a moment suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such studies.  But after a while one may perhaps be excused for marveling how many churches were planted by Paul and Whitfield and Wesley and Stanway and Judson without enjoying these advantages.  Of course all of us need to understand the people to whom we minister, and all of us can benefit from small doses of such literature.  But massive doses sooner or later dilute the gospel.  Ever so subtly, we start to think that success more critically depends on thoughtful sociological analysis than on the gospel; Barna becomes more important than the Bible.  We depend on plans, programs, vision statement—but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning.  Again, I insist, my position is not a thinly veiled plea for obscurantismm, for seat-of-the-pants ministry that plans nothing.  Rather, I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed brom the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight.  Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry."

This move to Culpeper has been anything but expected.  In fact several things have been down right discouraging.  Like,

1. Having the washer break when we got here.  That's right, Hallie hasn't been able to do a single load of laundry for almost two weeks.  They ordered a part for the machine.  The tech was here to install it this morning and that part was broken too.  Now they are ordering another part for us. Hallie is at the laundromat right now as I type this.
   
2. We just had to have undercarriage repaired on our minivan.
3. I found out that the paper loader on my work printer doesn't work at all.  HP is shipping me a new printer.
4. Our house is still for sale in MS.
5. We've looked at every home for sale in Culpeper and haven't come up with any good options.
6. Just found out that ATT inadvertently canceled my text message service a month ago without notifying me.  Oops.  I just spent 20 minutes on their customer service.  They corrected their error, reestablished service, and credited my account.
7. Add to this the difficulty of moving to a different state into a 4 month rental.
   

All this in just 10 days.  Not exactly what I was expecting.  And before you think I'm whining, let me just say I'm an optimist.  I have a very bad habit of not admitting the very difficult things that are going on in my life.  And in so doing I short circuit God's grace in my life.  These are very real, difficult circumstances that God has given to my family.  To pretend they aren't difficult or aren't "that bad" is to deny what God is doing.  He is doing his loving—most loving—work in me and my family.  And it hurts.

The cross is the constant reminder to me that what God is doing isn't punishment but rather Fatherly love.  If I didn't have the Cross I'd think God were furious with me right now.  But he isn't, in fact he has never been more affectionate—an easy truth to type and a hard one to work into my heart. 

I know other families have problems that make my petty list look like a vacation at Disney World.  But for us, this has been hard... and we are right where God wants us.  I'm learning about God's grace during difficult times.  He is sovereign and good—especially when I'm mistrusting of him.