Removing Dead Branches

On one of my recent to-do lists was a task to remove all of the dead branches from a vine in our backyard. It had become so dense I wanted to just pull it all out and burn it. It seems that God has a similar item on His to-do list.

Note: This post is an updated version from one written last year. It is one of many that I plan to update in the coming weeks. You can read more about why the they are updating in my posting about Finding My Soul, Again. As I updated this post, the pain I felt while writing it the first time is just as real today.

First on God’s List: Remove the Dead Branches

When this site went live last year, I was working as a SharePoint Administrator. A few weeks later, several hundred employees were let go, including myself. I had worked with that company for over fifteen years. Granted, it was just one in a long of positions I’ve held over the years, it was my favorite. I miss it greatly, especially the people I worked with each day.

I was planning to retire from there in the next few years and focus on other things. Now, I had no job and no money coming in other than unemployment. Here I was in my mid sixties starting all over again just to work a few more years before quitting so that I could retire. Well, there was only one thing to do at this point in my life.

First on My Revised List: Replace Those Dead Branches

I figured finding a new job would be easy. Don’t forget, I’m a seasoned professional in the technology world, with over twenty years of experience. Who would not want me?

As I was handing out my resume, employers were not exactly stumbling over each other trying to hire me. To this day, I have no idea why they failed to see how well I would fit in their company. I had the skills and the talent. At first, as the rejections came in, I caulked it up to God. For some reason, He was purposely closing those doors. I was OK with that since my prayer with each submission to do exactly that if the position was not right for me at this time. He was answering my prayers, and over the year He kept answering those prayers. I did question why He answered those prayers but not the one for getting hired by someone, anyone.

As the months without work grew, I questioned my whole approach to the process. I felt it was not so much God answering prays, but a bad case of marketing on my part. My resume just didn’t cut it in the current job market. I was still thinking in the way I marketed myself twenty years ago, which just was not working. I needed to reinvent myself and market myself accordingly.

Next on My List: Graft New Branches to Replace the Dead Ones

Being a typical triple A male, I did everything I could to reinvented myself. I was no longer simply looking for a new job, I was looking for ways to improve myself, at least on paper. Each week I spent hours rewording my resume, detailing how wonderful each of my branches were… er, skill sets. At the end of each week, I became a new person with a better skill set than the previous week. Yet, the new improved me still had no interviews.

In time my attitude went from ‘What is wrong with them? to ‘What is wrong with me?‘. Of course I didn’t say that part out loud. I just felt it with each rejection letter. Without admitting it, I began to grow depressed. But I could not afford to be depressed. Remember, I was out of work and my family was counting on me to support them.

However that did not stop my from asking God a lot of questions. During those prayer times with Him, I kept asking why? Why am I not getting hired? Sometimes I was up to my eyeballs in tears and the house ringing with a loud verbal cry or two. I could not understand it. Couldn’t He see I was hurting?

Next on God’s List: Wait for Me to Catch-Up

When God did speak, at least in a way I could hear him through my tears, it was to clarify for me why I was in tears. It was not the loss of job or not finding new work, but the loss of my personal identify that comes with the job. Without realizing it, all these months I was not wrestling with the loss of my job, but the loss of my identity.

After nine long months, I was still fighting the job market, myself, and especially God to get my identify back. I did not even realize how badly I wanted it. God purposely removed what had become a dead branch in me. Worse, the job had become an idol shaped over twenty years [Isaiah 44:14-17 CJB]. I didn’t care, I wanted it back.

While working to find my new identity, God too was working on my new identity. He was there every day, whether it was the old or a possible new me that showed up that day. He was the one constant in my new life. As I worried, one way or another God met my family’s every need, bill, household expenses, and even most of my wants. I can say that in nine months, my family is still basically at zero debt. He is so faithful.

A New Identify Outside of Work

Now a year later of not working, I realize I am better off than most who are working hard to keep their jobs. In all this time I never really considered that I should just give up and retire. I thought I needed the income. Yet that is exactly what He has been trying to teach me for over a year. When I focus on Him and remain in Him, rather than the dead branch inside of me, I am alive.

Have you thought about how often you breath? Most likely not unless you have a bad cold. Breathing is so much of our daily routine that we never even think about it. Now how about the rest of your daily routine? For me, it turns out I had been breathing my job in and out so long I had forgotten who I was, or even wanted to be. I became tired, dead tired all the time.

Have you ever looked at a dead branch. Really looked? What you see was pretty much how I felt once I allowed myself to feel.

Last Item on Both Lists: Time to Remove Those Dead Branches

A few weeks back, God reminded me of Jesus’s words about how a branch dies once it becomes disconnected from the vine [John 15:5–8]. In my quiet moments, I knew He was right. I was becoming dead. I had no energy. I could feel them in my heart and spirit dying, but my head had become focused on work where it could not hear either of them. My head had twisted or snapped off from the vine years ago and was left to think on its own, without the life-giving nourishment only the vine can offer. One again, I am seeing myself as God sees me. More importantly, how He wants me to grow and what I can become by remaining on the vine.

If you will excuse me for a bit. There are still a few more dead branches that have been piling up. They’re becoming a fire hazard.