By Robert Kirk

“I need to find out who Robert is.”

I was in my twentythird year of ministry, my eleventh year at the church I was serving at the time. My father and his father before him had also been pastors. I knew something needed to change.

The statement quoted above was made as I sat in a meeting I had called with my staffparish relations committee just over four years ago. I was asking the committee for a three month sabbatical which they graciously granted me. The three months which I hoped would breathe new life into this tired pastor instead ushered me into what at that time was one of the darkest times of my life.

Over the years, unknown to me, my identity had become increasingly tied to what I was doing. When your identity is totally tied up in what you are doing and you suddenly stop doing it, you quickly find yourself without any identity at all.

During that season I picked up a little book entitled “The Rabbi’s Heartbeat.” Chapter three described what was both my current state and hope: the great divorce between my head and my heart endured throughout my ministry.

For eighteen years I proclaimed the good news of God’s passionate unconditional love, utterly convicted in my head but not feeling it in my heart. I never felt loved (my state), but finally after an intense soul-searching retreat, I came to understand I was truly loved; the impostor faded and I was in touch with my true self as the returned child of God.

Toward the end of my three month sabbatical my wife Debbie and I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri to visit the International House of Prayer. There I heard over and over again that my true identity is that of the “Beloved.”

During the following spring I was driving home from work one day and totally out of nowhere, in the closest I have ever come to hearing God speak audibly, I sensed Him saying, “Robert, your work at St. Paul (the church I was serving) is done.” I felt a true peace. I remember thinking “And?” But that was it!

A couple of weeks later I was reading the story of Abraham and came to the place where God asked Abraham to go to a place He would show him. Once again, God broke in and asked me, “Robert, would you be willing to do that?” I remember first responding, “I would like to be willing” and moments later, “Yes Lord, I am willing.”

To make a long story short that summer we began what we thought would be a one year sabbatical. We moved to Kansas City to be part of the International House of Prayer in August of 2004. Then the following spring we took early retirement. We have found the Lord to be faithful in His provision for our needs.

During this time, I became acquainted with Andy Comiskey and was touched by the tenderness of his heart and by the prayers I heard him pray at the House of Prayer.

This past September I began a part-time internship with Desert Stream. I have realized that I am not alone in this search for my true identity. I am hoping that my time at Desert Stream with Andy, Dean, Annette and the other interns will bring me more fully into the experiential reality of who I am in Jesus.

I do not know what the future holds but I hope and pray that in and out of that place as the “Beloved” I might be used to minister hope, healing and restoration to others who have been robbed of their true identity as beloved sons and daughters of God.

From DesertStream.org