You read that right: Shift Happens.
Sometimes our lives take unexpected “shifts.” Shifts happen to us.
On Monday June 9, 2003 my life hit an unexpected shift.
A year prior I moved to Washington, DC with visions of changing American culture danced through my head. I was a young ambitious conservative with a kick-ass haircut who wanted to leave his mark on the American political landscape for Christ, mainly through subversive legislation. God was good enough to provide a position with a Senator, thus launching my budding career on Capitol Hill.
Up until Monday June 9, 2003 I was trying to move into upper legislative positions to leave such a mark. There were a few opportunities that came and went, but nothing that stuck. In fact, the week prior to Monday June 9, 2003 I was approached about a position where I would have worked on some policy and had face-time with the Senator.
While it seemed like an obvious, no-brainer opportunity, I felt like God didn’t want me to pursue it, that it wasn’t a good fit. That friday before Monday June 9, 2003 I approached my boss who talked with me about the opportunity and turned it down. I said I didn’t think it was the right fit, all the while cursing inside! She understood and said that there might be another opportunity in the press office. She said that a person there was looking to leave and thought it might be a good move for me. I thanked her and said I’d think about it…
Now fast forward to Monday June 9, 2003.
Late in the afternoon that person in the press shop decided to come visit my coworker and me in our office. He came in to grab a Dum-Dum sucker and ended up chatting and watching FoxNews. In the course of the conversation I asked him about his move. It went something like this:
Me: Hey (we’ll call him) Bob, I heard you were looking to leave. What’s the deal?
Bob: Umm…what do you mean?
Me: Well, someone told me you were thinking of moving back to Chicago and was wondering what was up?
Bob: I don’t what you’re talking about. Who told you that?
PAUSE: Now for some reason I thought he thought it was a secret, so I thought telling him this persons name would let him no there was no need to worry. I thought, “Surely if this Asst. Chief of Staff told me about this it wasn’t a big deal!” UNPAUSE
Me: Well (let’s call her) Sherri told me.
Bob: I don’t know what Sherri is talking about. I’m not looking to leave.
AWK-ward
I didn’t know what to say…so I just said, “Sorry!”
He left and I turned to my co-worker, “Good, God what have I just done.”
A bit later my coworker left and returned to let me know Bob and Sherri were in the hallway talking.
Great!
A few minutes before my day ended, Sherri came into my office and asked to see me in the hallway. THAT conversation went something like this:
Sherri: Did you ask Bob if he was looking to leave?
Me: Yes
Sherri: Did you say I told you that?
Me: Yes
Sherri: Why did you say that?!?!?! I told you not to tell anyone (which I did NOT recall at all). He came to me in confidence to say he was looking to leave (which, btw, he did…and was planning to all along!). And I had to lie through my teeth to say I didn’t say anything to you.
And then the words that rocked my world…
Sherri: And you fucked up…and that’s why you’re not going anywhere in this organization.
She stormed off. I sat stunned…at the bottom of a cistern.
I’ve called that experience my Joseph Moment. Like Joseph, a massive shift occurred in my life. You probably remember much of Joseph’s story, especially the beginning that launched his own storied tale. At the beginning of his story, Joseph’s father sends him to the land of Shechem to check on his brothers who were supposed to be looking after the family’s sheep or something. When Joseph arrives they are not there, but there just happens to be someone there who knows where they’ve gone to. Joseph is sent to the land of Dothan, where they just happen to be.
Hi brothers see him coming and are burning with anger and jealousy over Joseph’s dreams (the one’s that predicted Joseph’s leadership position…over them!) and their father’s favoritism (like the “technicolor dream coat”). While most of them want to kill Joseph, another suggests they spare his life and throw him in a cistern that just happens to be nearby.
So they do. They throw Joseph in a cistern. And as Joseph careens into the dusty dirt of the dried-out cistern, Joseph’s life Shifts.
Shift happens.
How many of us here have had Joseph Moments in our own stories? Moments when things absolutely just…shifted unexplainably and you were catapulted into a completely different direction than you could have imagined.
Someone dies.
You lose a job.
An unexpected pregnancy.
A major health problem is diagnosed.
Someone close to you betrays you.
A child falls away from God.
A marriage collapses.
One minute life is fantastic and beautiful. You’re just minding your own business and then
WHAMMO as they say in the comics…an unexpected shift.
This is what happened to me. This is what has happened to all of us. This is what happened to our good friend Joseph, because
shift happens.
As we walk through his story we’ll not only see how he handled his own shifts. We’ll also realize the truth about our own stories.
that the God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is with us through it all; what others, especially the Evil One, meant for evil, the Lord has meant for good.
Shift happens, but God is with us.
