Latest / Finding God at Work / 23: When Your Dream Comes Back to Life (with Katie Walter Easley)

Transcript

23: When Your Dream Comes Back to Life (with Katie Walter Easley) · Finding God at Work

0:03
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris, I'm Katie, and this is
0:09
Finding God at Work.
0:13
Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
0:16
isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
0:18
course.
0:19
Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
0:27
Our current series is Divine Disappointments, Facing Pain
0:30
and Sorrow at Work, and we're including the
0:33
series with this story of the life of
0:36
Joseph in Genesis and Katie and me sharing
0:38
a little bit of our story as well
0:40
and some connection points.
0:42
So last time we left Joseph in prison
0:45
and we left me at a mortgage company.
0:47
So I think my journey is cushier than
0:50
Joseph's for sure, but still had a sense
0:54
of that death of a dream to it.
0:56
So we're going to pick up with Joseph
0:57
first.
0:58
He's in prison and God has this thing
1:01
with dreams in Joseph's life.
1:03
And so dreams keep happening, not just to
1:05
Joseph, but to the people around him.
1:06
And there's a couple prisoners in the prison
1:09
with Joseph who have a dream.
1:11
Joseph, by God's grace, is able to interpret
1:14
their dreams.
1:14
God gives him the interpretation.
1:16
And what he interprets comes true.
1:17
One of them ends up getting executed.
1:19
The other ends up getting returned to Pharaoh's
1:22
court where he's cupbearer to Pharaoh.
1:25
Unfortunately, he does not really do anything to
1:28
help Joseph's cause until he needs Joseph's help.
1:34
So he just lets Joseph languish in prison
1:36
for a little while longer.
1:37
But then, lo and behold, Pharaoh has a
1:40
dream.
1:41
And the cupbearer remembers, oh wait, there was
1:43
a guy in prison named Joseph who can
1:45
maybe interpret dreams.
1:46
And so then Pharaoh ends up calling up
1:48
Joseph to interpret Pharaoh's dream.
1:50
So that's where we'll pick up in chapter
1:52
41, starting in verse 14.
1:55
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph and they
1:57
quickly brought him out of the pit.
1:59
And when he had shaved himself and changed
2:00
his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh.
2:03
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had
2:04
a dream and there is no one who
2:05
can interpret it.
2:06
I have heard it said that when you
2:08
hear a dream, you can interpret it.
2:10
Joseph answered Pharaoh, it is not in me.
2:12
God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.
2:15
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, then he explains
2:17
his dream and Joseph interprets it, etc., etc.
2:19
Okay, picking up again in verse 37.
2:26
Joseph kind of makes a proposal to Pharaoh
2:28
based on what he heard in the dream.
2:30
This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants.
2:33
And Pharaoh said to his servants, can we
2:34
find a man like this in whom is
2:35
the spirit of God?
2:37
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has
2:39
shown you all this, there is none so
2:41
discerning and wise as you are.
2:43
You shall be over my house and all
2:45
my people shall order themselves as you command
2:48
only as regards of the throne, will I
2:50
be greater than you?
2:52
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have
2:54
set you over all the land of Egypt.
2:56
Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his
2:58
hand and put it on Joseph's hand and
3:00
clothed him in garnets of fine linen and
3:02
put a gold chain about his neck.
3:04
And he made him ride in his second
3:05
chariot and they called out before him, bow
3:08
the knee.
3:09
And he set him over all the land
3:11
of Egypt.
3:13
Okay, so in case you missed it, Joseph's
3:16
dream came true.
3:18
This dream that he had as a young
3:19
man of being exalted to a high position.
3:22
Back then he was probably thinking about being
3:24
in a high position as a nomadic herdsman.
3:27
He gets exalted to be the right hand
3:29
man of the most powerful political entity on
3:32
the face of the earth at that time.
3:34
Joseph essentially becomes king of the world.
3:36
And so he's the most exalted that a
3:38
human being could be other than Pharaoh himself.
3:41
This is a fulfillment of Joseph's dream.
3:44
Okay, but where did he start?
3:46
He was still in prison, even as God
3:47
was being faithful to him, he was languishing
3:49
in prison for a while.
3:50
Okay.
3:50
We'll talk a little bit more about fulfillment
3:52
of dreams, but back to me at the
3:54
mortgage company.
3:56
So, yeah, languishing at the mortgage company.
3:58
I mean, God was meeting me there, but
4:00
in 2022, I got laid off from the
4:04
mortgage company, which was a grace in and
4:06
of itself, but obviously disorienting at the time.
4:09
And I thought, hey, maybe I should leap
4:11
back into full-time ministry.
4:12
Maybe Katie's gotten healed enough, my eagerness to
4:17
get back into ministry ramped up yet again.
4:20
So ready.
4:21
So ready.
4:22
But thankfully this time I was a little
4:23
bit more discerning, a little more listening to
4:26
friends and family and others who helped us
4:28
discern.
4:28
And we decided, hey, maybe let's do a
4:30
half and half.
4:31
So I intentionally looked for a part-time
4:32
job so that I could grow Mission Central
4:34
to about 20 hours a week while still
4:37
working a job that created more stability for
4:39
Katie and didn't put pressure on her in
4:41
relationship to her life in the church.
4:44
And God provided that.
4:45
Within six weeks of me being laid off,
4:47
I found a part-time job at Northern
4:48
Illinois Food Bank and we ramped up my
4:50
hours for Mission Central, began working more actively
4:52
with churches in the Fox Valley area.
4:54
So that's actually the rhythm of ministry that
4:57
I'm still in, kind of bivocational rhythm of
4:59
ministry where I do Mission Central a couple
5:01
of days a week, I do the food
5:03
bank three days a week, and I get
5:04
to be in a variety of churches.
5:05
So there's been a lot of consolation there,
5:08
but I still had this sense that something
5:11
was off, that something was missing.
5:13
I tried to imagine my life long-term
5:15
of just continuing this bivocational rhythm, not necessarily
5:19
ever being a pastor, and something just wasn't
5:22
settling for me.
5:23
And it definitely intersected with my mental health
5:25
journey as well.
5:26
So I had had periods of depression kind
5:29
of all along the way here.
5:30
2019 was a really significant period of depression
5:32
when I was in that kind of desolation
5:34
season of the dream dying.
5:36
But this was kind of a new season
5:38
where I really felt like I wasn't sure
5:42
who I was if I was never going
5:45
to be a dad or a pastor.
5:46
I started seeing a new counselor who was
5:48
really helpful.
5:49
And one of the things he said to
5:50
me was, Chris, you need to talk to
5:51
Katie about how you really feel about that.
5:53
Otherwise, you're always going to be resentful towards
5:54
her.
5:55
And so that wasn't what I had been
5:58
thinking before.
5:59
I thought, hey, I've matured to the point
6:01
where I can lay down my dream for
6:02
my wife.
6:03
And in a way, that was the right
6:04
thing, or at least laying down my plan.
6:06
Oh, yes.
6:07
That was the right thing.
6:08
In like 2020.
6:10
But now a couple of years later, 2022,
6:12
2023, I was realizing something still is missing
6:18
in the puzzle here.
6:19
And so it came to a head when
6:21
Katie and I were actually driving to my
6:23
cousin's apartment.
6:24
We were going to help them with some
6:25
discernment stuff about like their ministry vocation life.
6:29
And Katie, you very generously said like, hey,
6:34
we're about to go like pray with people
6:35
about maybe them getting to go do all
6:37
the things you've always wanted to do.
6:39
Like, are you OK?
6:41
I was like, no, I am not OK.
6:46
We realized just how not OK you were.
6:49
And I didn't even, I mean, I probably
6:51
didn't even handle the way I expressed myself
6:52
very gently in that conversation.
6:54
But basically what I said is, I feel
6:56
like I've been trying not to be a
6:57
pastor for four years.
6:59
And the problem isn't that I haven't found
7:00
the right thing.
7:01
The problem is that I'm not a pastor.
7:04
And you responded really graciously.
7:07
OK, let's see what happens.
7:08
Yeah, yeah.
7:09
And that is not what I was expecting.
7:12
Me neither.
7:12
Yeah, because, you know, even a couple of
7:14
years earlier, Katie had had such a strong
7:17
reaction when you've been trying to go to
7:18
church.
7:19
I was like, this is not going to
7:21
be possible for me to be a pastor.
7:23
And now Katie essentially saying, OK, let's let's
7:25
work with that was was a much warmer
7:28
reception than I was thinking.
7:30
So I kind of dug into that and
7:31
I asked Katie, like, what's what's that mean?
7:35
Like, what's going on with you in the
7:36
church?
7:37
And it made me realize that things had
7:40
been going on because I was surprised by
7:44
giving that answer, too.
7:47
I think some highlights would be like I've
7:51
I'd really gotten a much more stronger sense
7:53
of self by that time, much more confidence
7:56
in who I am and my place in
7:59
the world and not feeling like I have
8:01
to measure up to some imaginary projection of
8:06
this pastor's wife thing.
8:07
Like there was there was a way for
8:09
me to inhabit my space that was authentic
8:14
and still what the church needed.
8:17
Yeah.
8:18
And so I started getting clued into some
8:21
of what had been happening under the surface
8:22
for you at church, that there had kind
8:26
of been the beginning of like a rapprochement
8:28
with you in the church, of you being
8:30
your real authentic self and being more present
8:32
at church.
8:33
Like I like I had noticed that you'd
8:35
been coming to church more often, but you
8:36
still wouldn't talk to me about what was
8:37
happening for you at church.
8:39
Yeah, I didn't want to break the spell.
8:42
So this conversation on the way to my
8:45
cousin's apartment broke the spell, which we're really
8:48
grateful for.
8:48
And then the next day we happened to
8:49
be driving to my parents in Madison and
8:52
had an even fuller conversation about your life
8:54
in the church.
8:55
Ended up getting to pray with my parents
8:57
that weekend.
8:59
Just a really strong sense of clarity kind
9:01
of emerging.
9:02
And I remember you using the words like,
9:04
I'm choosing the church.
9:07
Yeah.
9:08
Maybe you didn't use those words that weekend,
9:10
but that's a good way to encapsulate.
9:13
That was when I wrote the blog post,
9:14
when I wrote the blog post to explain
9:15
what happened for you that weekend.
9:17
You said, I'm choosing the church.
9:18
Yeah.
9:19
So yeah, sometimes the words come later.
9:22
But that was definitely a shift, I think,
9:26
of you kind of having this this almost
9:28
like dogged engagement with the church, where even
9:31
when it was hard, even when you did
9:33
have a migraine, I mean, not always, sometimes
9:35
you really did get laid out.
9:35
But like you were like, I'm going to
9:37
show up.
9:37
I'm going to be there.
9:38
I'm going to I'm going to connect with
9:39
the church come what may.
9:41
Yeah, something was changing for me, and it's
9:43
still hard for me to explain what it
9:45
was.
9:45
But what I knew was this doesn't feel
9:48
toxic to me anymore the way it used
9:51
to.
9:52
And I'm feeling a pull of getting glimmers
9:57
of of who you are as a pastorly
10:01
person.
10:02
And I want to see more of that,
10:03
too.
10:04
Yeah.
10:05
So in the in the months that followed
10:06
that kind of shift internally of, oh, maybe
10:13
maybe Katie could be at home in the
10:15
church as herself.
10:16
We also faced into a little bit of
10:18
a family health crisis with Katie's parents.
10:21
Too complicated to get into here.
10:24
But that, by God's grace, led to us
10:26
talking about stuff as a family that we
10:28
didn't used to talk about.
10:30
Oh, yeah.
10:30
We didn't talk my side of the family.
10:33
No, no talking.
10:34
But there was a really significant moment for
10:37
me when you had sat down with my
10:39
mom and just listened to her and just
10:42
your your presence and your listening.
10:45
It somehow it made it possible for her
10:48
to talk about and process things that I
10:51
had never heard her talk about.
10:53
It was an incredible moment.
10:55
Like she was so brave and you were
10:59
so there.
11:00
And and I was thinking, wow, if somebody
11:03
can get my mom to talk, we need
11:07
more of that in this world.
11:08
Yeah.
11:09
And so in a way, it kind of
11:11
felt like I felt like seen by you
11:13
in my vocation as a pastor in a
11:15
new way, just like I had kind of
11:17
seen you in your vocation as a nurse
11:19
more clearly during the mortgage company years.
11:22
I felt like during the family crisis, you
11:25
saw that I could really shepherd people.
11:27
Yeah.
11:28
And and that was beautiful.
11:29
So I was still going through counseling at
11:32
this time, working through these things in an
11:34
interior way.
11:35
But basically, I started to hope again.
11:37
I started to dream again and believe like
11:40
maybe maybe I will be a pastor again
11:43
someday.
11:43
Like maybe there's a way that I could
11:44
step into that that would not be unhealthy
11:47
for Katie, where she could still really be
11:49
Katie, really be herself, really live out her
11:51
vocation as a nurse and also be married
11:54
to me while I'm a pastor.
11:55
And I was starting to believe this, too.
11:57
This wasn't just wishful thinking on your part.
11:59
Right.
11:59
And it felt different than in the earlier
12:02
seasons where I was like, gung ho, let's
12:04
force something to happen because this time what
12:06
happened, you're going to say something because you
12:09
weren't pushing, you weren't scheming, you were listening
12:13
and you were watching and waiting for the
12:17
opportunities to present themselves at the right time.
12:20
Yeah.
12:21
And and this time around, even as I
12:23
began to dream again, I didn't plan.
12:26
I didn't have a plan.
12:27
Yes.
12:27
I didn't immediately fall into I have to
12:29
control this.
12:30
I have to make it happen.
12:31
I just sort of was like, OK, maybe
12:33
the Lord will do that and continued to
12:35
do the day by day stuff that I
12:36
was already doing.
12:37
So ended up continuing that work at the
12:40
food bank, continuing the work of Mission Central.
12:42
The conversation around kids also kind of surfaced
12:45
in that season.
12:46
So a few months later, I remember it
12:48
was when we were going to go see
12:48
Dune 2 and we ate at Portillo's.
12:51
Yeah.
12:52
And at Portillo's, we had this conversation about
12:55
foster care.
12:57
And again, that was a moment where, like,
12:59
you were in a different spot than you
13:00
had been in a few years earlier.
13:01
Yeah, I was feeling like maybe I could
13:05
be a foster parent.
13:07
So that left us in this really interesting
13:09
place where we're kind of still in this
13:12
season of doing a lot of care for
13:13
Katie's parents, but we're getting trained as Illinois
13:16
foster care parents.
13:17
And I'm sort of back to thinking of
13:20
myself as a future pastor, even though my
13:23
job hasn't changed.
13:25
There's just this sense of like we're in
13:27
it in a way that wasn't true five
13:28
years ago.
13:30
We're in life together with one another's vocations
13:33
and with our shared call to love children
13:36
and with our shared call to love the
13:37
world and with our shared call to love
13:39
the church.
13:40
And that's just been really beautiful to live
13:43
inside of, even though like the dream hasn't
13:45
quite like come true yet.
13:46
Like we don't have a foster care placement
13:48
yet and we're not sure on the timing
13:50
there.
13:50
And I'm still terrified about the idea of
13:52
being a parent.
13:53
Right.
13:54
That hasn't turned into something easy for me.
13:57
Yeah.
13:58
And I'm still not a pastor.
13:59
Like I still have my mission central role,
14:01
but I don't have the title pastor.
14:02
I'm not on staff at a church.
14:03
So we don't have like a neat bow
14:05
tied up ending to this right now.
14:07
And I think I want to be really
14:08
clear that our story is not exactly a
14:11
story about our dreams coming true or your
14:14
dreams coming true.
14:15
It's a story about God's dreams coming true.
14:20
Yeah, that's really that's really well spoken.
14:23
And I think coming back to Joseph's story,
14:26
whatever Joseph envisioned when he was young and
14:29
he received those dreams from God is probably
14:30
different than what God ultimately did, which included
14:33
saving the whole nation of Egypt in a
14:36
season of famine, as well as Joseph's own
14:39
family.
14:39
So the same family that sold him out,
14:41
they ended up journeying to Egypt and eventually
14:42
being reconciled with Joseph.
14:45
And then that led to the next step
14:47
of God's faithfulness and the covenant to the
14:50
descendants of Abraham.
14:51
And so there's this way in which Joseph
14:53
was caught up in something way bigger than
14:55
he could have even imagined.
14:57
And God was faithful the whole way through,
14:59
even in the death of the vision, the
15:02
double death of the vision, and then this
15:03
kind of resurrection of the vision at the
15:05
end of the story.
15:06
And right now I feel like I'm I'm
15:08
hearing like the rustling of the wind in
15:10
our lives where I'm like, I think the
15:12
dream's going to come back to life.
15:13
I really do.
15:14
The rustling of the wind of resurrection.
15:16
Something like that.
15:17
Yeah.
15:17
Yeah.
15:18
But like also having this humility of like,
15:20
I don't know what that's going to look
15:21
like.
15:21
And that's up to the Lord and not
15:22
up to me.
15:22
And that's OK.
15:24
Because 20 year old me and 21 year
15:26
old you, when we had just gotten married,
15:28
would have we would have thought you were
15:30
crazy if we saw a picture of life
15:33
the way it is now with me as
15:35
a nurse practitioner and you with your eclectic
15:40
work history, having learned piece by piece.
15:46
What I'm doing and how I'm being, yeah,
15:49
there's no way we would have predicted any
15:51
of this.
15:51
And thinking about foster kids instead of biological
15:54
kids, we would we would never have guessed
15:56
that.
15:56
Yeah, yeah.
15:57
So it's still an adventure.
15:59
The story isn't over, but I'm I'm just
16:02
excited to see what the Lord does in
16:04
the years to come.
16:06
Anything else you want to add?
16:08
I love you.
16:09
I love you, too.
16:10
Well, let's let's end.
16:11
Well, actually, I usually ask guests to close
16:13
in prayer.
16:13
Would you like to close in prayer for
16:15
the series as a whole?
16:17
Yes, absolutely.
16:20
God, may your dreams come true and help
16:24
us to wait to see them.
16:28
In Jesus name, Amen.
16:34
Thanks for listening.
16:35
Finding God at Work is a production of
16:37
Mission Central, a ministry based in Aurora, Illinois,
16:40
dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
16:43
life.
16:43
You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you
16:46
listen to this episode to get 10 minutes
16:48
of teaching on faith and work every Tuesday
16:49
and Thursday.
16:51
To get resources to go deeper with each
16:53
podcast series, read our blog and get info
16:55
about upcoming courses on faith in the workplace.
16:58
Go to our website, missioncentral.church.