Mismatch?

Finally, I have come to the end of the first run of my training workshops. It has been 5 long weeks. Yesterday, the last day of my workshop, I don't know who was happier - me or the participants :) 

I think I have identified what it is that makes me feel dispirited and joyless in my new job. I think it is because in the past few years,  I have deliberately been cultivating a life that is more about thinking than doing, more about connecting than telling, more about saying yes to life rather than yes to work. Then just when I thought I was going to move forward in this journey by doing more of what I love, which is teaching, I realise I have actually moved back. I have moved back into a life of working without asking why, of doing without reflection, of valuing speed more than deliberation.

I think the life cycle I am at does not match the life cycle of the organisation I am in. The organisation  is new, needing to grow quickly, needing to make an impact. What it needs are people who are eager to be pioneers, to be trailblazers. I am not. I am at a life stage when I want to be retrospective, when I want to make sense of life, and use my life experiences to mentor and guide the younger ones. I feel like Moses at the end of leading his wandering flock, not Joshua waiting to charge in with the flock. To Joshua the Promised Land was one of opportunity and promise. To Moses the Promised Land would have meant the reward for his toils.

I wish I knew how to manage this mismatch. I know where I am is part of God's design and purpose. I know I am called to do my work as unto the Lord and not men. I know I can trust God. I wish my heart would listen to my head more.