Oh, For a Thousand Days to See

If only I could see 1000 days into the future (or even six months, but "a thousand days to see" fit the adapted hymn title). I would know just what I would be doing, and, hopefully, that it would be something other than working at Fed Ex (no offense, Fed Ex). I feel stuck in a job I still have only because we get our health insurance through it. Six years of college and four years of grad school have prepared me to work in an Ottowa yard switcher for FedEx Ground? I sure don't get much use of my Master of Divinity degree sitting alone in my truck waiting for instructions over the radio. Things are turning out very differently from what I had imagined a year or two ago.

I have sent out resumes to some churches. I have sent my CV to a couple of colleges (one, my undergraduate alma mater, has laid off several full-time faculty and is in a hiring freeze indefinitely, and the other will only consider me for adjunct teaching, i.e., one class occasionally). I need experience to get a job; I need a job to get experience. But I don't want to go into a ministry where I'd feel like I settled for the job just to get out of Fed Ex. And few (if any) Bible colleges are hiring full-time faculty. The ones that are prefer PhDs.

So we stand at a four-way fork in the road. Here are the choices/options:

• Try to get into a PhD program. I've wanted to do a PhD anyway, but I'm sure it would help me get considered more seriously.
• Stay in Cincinnati and work secular jobs until I find a ministry or get into a PhD program.
• Look only for a ministry, no matter how long it takes.
• Move somewhere else more beneficial for all three of us (that is, move to Iowa or something) and apply the three options above. We came to Cincy to study, not to live here forever (unless I get a ministry or Bible college professor position here).

There are good things and bad things for each option, mostly having to do with time, level of personal satisfaction, and making the most out of my education. There are also so many unknowns for each one. Would I even get accepted for a PhD program? How many churches say no before I reconsider ministry at this point? Do I want to begin a career at age 36 or so? What if we move and then I find "the church"?

I have rambled enough. Suffice it to say that while I believe God knows what will happen eventually, he has chosen not to reveal it to me. Instead, he asks me to take the harder road of faith and trust in him rather than doing it all myself. Clearly I need the practice.