Questions like these are ones that I typically run away from. This question is no exception. As with many people, a question that requires me to think ahead and to create a future perspective of an uncertain future of my life makes me uneasy and uncomfortable. In the first few weeks into these nine months, there have been words to confirm my previous suspicions that ‘perspective’ goes a long way into determining your ideas in retrospect and therefore shapes your visions for the future. In retrospect, I remember distinctly my frustration of responding to the Gotham application question, "What do you see yourself doing in five years and what are some of your overall life goals?"... My typical response to these questions is, ‘I don’t have a clear vision of the future except that I have an expectation that God is working and I want to be open to His will;’ a response that is neat, concise and proclaiming God’s sovereignty. However, it is also cowardly and lacks a boldness that has been exemplified in the actions and words of Paul and Peter.

What I had previously believed as putting my complete trust in God by ‘letting Him work’ and removing myself from goals and specific vision now seems to be superseded by the greater trust required from setting goals and drafting visions and watching God tear them apart or confirm them and bless them. For me now, the former is based on fear but the latter is based on fearing the Lord. What is at stake for approaching with a future perspective? At the least, there is action and movement toward God with my own ambitions and at best, my goals align with His will and the Spirit moves unabated by my typical tentative human approach, and thus create life transforming events.

Therefore, in nine months, I would like to have a greater boldness in my approach to my relationship with Christ, with a continued regimen of devotions and intentional prayer. I would like to have a greater boldness in my Christian actions and display what I believe with more confidence and conviction that will be evident to those around me. I want to be a leader in my professional career, informed by the studies during Gotham. In nine months I want to have established a five year goal for career and spiritual movement in my life. And during these nine months I still retain an expectation of God working and changing my life and the community in which I am involved. But I have this expectation now while I am meeting God with my own goals and works. It is not enough to sit back and enjoy (or lament) the ride, but one must pursue God as he pursues us; work toward and for Him, as He has done so for us. There is nothing to be gained from being complacent, and depending on ones ‘perspective’, there is much to gain by working forward in the next nine months and beyond. Simply, I would like to be working…

My decision towards applying for the Gotham Fellowship was an extremely difficult one for me, as I am at a point of transition in my life. But I would like to first start with how I decided to join the Fellowship.

Last April, I was preparing a workshop on how Christianity and Finance for the Financial Services Ministry’s leadership retreat. On one of my readings, I learned about Shalom – God created the world in a certain way that will bring about Shalom. However, it is our sin that perverts the goodness of his creation and shatters Shalom.

I’ve realized that I have little concept of what a world in Shalom really looks like. Are we all supposed to be happy in Shalom? What are my motivations for working when I am in Shalom? What is finance supposed to really be, and how did God create it? During this time, Katherine Leary suggested that I join the Gotham Fellowship to wrestle this issue.

However, last April was also the time that my career was being turned upside down. I had been working on M&A deals for most of my working career, but I have not been doing any deals for the past year. With the credit markets still frozen, it would only be a matter of time before I would loose my job. I started to think about what I should really be doing with my life – should I leave finance? Should I go back and study to become another career? Should I leave New York and work somewhere else? What is God telling me?

Since then, I have lost my job. However, I have also decided to stay in New York. I believe that God wants me to learn to trust in him. But more than that, I need to understand him more so that I can learn to love him more.

In nine months, I hope that I can understand community better. I hope that I can wrestle, with other people, the image of what Shalom should be. But most of all, I expect to love others and be loved back.
 

When presented with the question “where do I want to be in nine months?” at our fall retreat my mind flooded with a list of areas I long to grow in, areas that seem to never be too far from my mind. When reading back through that journal entry I found that my answers were not particularly interesting or profound. But I did find my answers to be hesitant and reserved. “Don’t ask too much, Lisa.” Upon a second re-reading of this journal entry I realized that a lack of faith ran through my answers like a poisoned river. I clearly remember what I was feeling when I penned the two pages in my black moleskin, and although I wasn’t saying so explicitly, my answers were screaming, “Can God really do these things in me? Will the Father choose to do great things through me and with me? I’m not so sure.” What a lack of trust in God and too much trust in myself!! S I N.

To be slapped in the face with my own sin is a gracious gift of the Lord! Having seen my lack of faith as well as a disproportionate balance of my belief in God’s ability to change me and his desire to do so, I am repentant and renewed in faith and hope for change in my heart, community, and city. I know He is able AND willing. With this my answers to “where I want to be in nine months” may not change, but my expectations, trust and hope will.

Further down this exact road is just where I want to be in nine months. I want to have a clear honest awareness of my sin, complimented with a deep faith that God can, will, and is pleased to overcome it. I also want a wholehearted willingness to live in obedience to him.

At Redeemer, and thus far in Gotham, we often hear that, “The gospel changes everything.” I believe this to be 100% right and true. In nine months I’d like to understand exactly how this is right and true. How the gospel changes the way I work, play, worship, handle relationships, etc…how I live/operate in and with the world. I hope to have a much more firm grasp on this in nine months…to be saturated with it. To name a few ways, this translates into a more robust prayer life, more thoughtful and meaningful times of daily personal worship, a deeper push to pour my life out on behalf of others (in all my communities, including the hospital) , and a faithful non-legalistic participation in the spiritual disciplines. All this has one end….more understand of and communion with God.

Gotham is challenging spiritually and mentally. In addition to the above hopes, in nine months I desire to have developed more depth of mind, more familiarity with my own mental processes, and more creative and astute thinking skills. A more full and complete understanding of my own faith and theology is desired and expected.

I feel like my life is compartmentalized. In reality there are no compartments. All portions of life and heart affect the other portions. In nine months I’d like the different “compartments” of my life to be joined together. To use the term from our first week’s reading, I long to be less dualistic. How can I marry the secular and sacred, the public and private? I am desperate to be further along in the process at the end of this nine month journey.

Spiritually, in community, and in my work, where do I want to be in nine months? In a place different from where I am today.
 

Nine months seems like a long time. But these days, I'm mostly waiting for the days to slow down so I can sit down and finally get a grasp on my life. When the question was posed "Where would you like to be in nine months?" during our retreat, I immediately thought of all the typical answers. Typical, not because they were expected (such as loving God and loving others more), but because they still remain such a large struggle in my life. And in some part, because I have always seen it as a struggle and it has always remained a struggle - I seem to lose hope in those answers every time I am presented with a question like this.

Always the sociologist, my reflection on this question during the retreat allowed me to look at it a different way. Instead of asking WHY these greater goals (such as loving God and loving others more) aren't being accomplished, I want to start asking WHAT things in my life are preventing me from those greater goals. Knowing myself, I tend to be overly ambitious - which as a result, has sometimes led me to be unnecessarily disappointed when I can't achieve my overly ambitious goals; so, over these next nine months, I want to focus on two main things that the Lord has brought out to be sin in my life.

First, I want to follow through with the things I want to do and/or believe is right to do. I believe God has blessed me with the ability to feel compassion and empathy for others, but for whatever reason, at times, I feel oppressed, lazy or ashamed to do so. Therefore, I don't actually act on those feelings even though I want to or believe it is right to do so. Similarly, I am someone who is better at giving out advice than living out advice; which is in other words, is pretty hypocritical. I pray that over these nine months, that I actually learn to explore and think through what it is that I really believe in and act on it, and follow through with it.

Second, I would like to be at a place where I can actually loosen the grips I have on life right now. Fear is a huge part as to why I grasp parts of life, but I pray that I can learn to slowly let go and trust God in those areas and that my life will be reflection of that in some way over the next nine months. But I do need a lot of prayer in this, because sometimes I have no idea how to go about that.

Normally, this is where I let my goals linger and see if they will just flourish without much of my doing (as if it's God's main job to achieve our own goals). However, I do know that there's a lot of work to do on my end, and that God will only work if I allow Him in my life to do so. During our meditation on Psalm 23 during the retreat, I was moved by the line "He restores my soul." Because somehow, in the midst of the mess that I may have brought upon myself, the Lord provides hope and restoration to those who look to Him.

I have the feeling that I’m starting a new life. It’s not just that Gotham is new and will take up much of my time for the next nine months. I’m also just beginning a new job and a new relationship. This new life, with its new players and new routines is taking some getting used to. In many ways, I feel like I’ve been given a fresh start, and it feels exhilarating to have this opportunity. Already, I feel things shifting. Old habits are being broken. Newer, better ones are being formed. They say it takes 21 days to develop a habit. That means that within a few weeks, the practice of having daily devotional time will likely be integrated into my routine – after a painfully long hiatus. If after 21 days, it’s a habit, I can only imagine that after nine months it will be thoroughly ingrained as a part of my life.

At the same time, I’m still who I am. Since moving to New York, I’ve noticed the ways that the city rubs off on me. I’m more cynical and jaded. I’m less hopeful. There’s a part of me that wants to be cautious about making grand projections about where I’ll be in nine months. What if this process raises more questions than answers about the course of my career and my tenure in New York City? What if I still routinely spend Friday evenings at home with my cat, still longing for the type of community I had hoped to find here? What if my shortcomings get in the way of something great that may be supposed to happen? What if I’m pinning too much on Gotham?

And yet I know that I’m supposed to believe that hope does not disappoint, because God has poured his love into my heart – and I feel that I’ve been given the grace to actually believe it. When I think about the unique experience that Gotham will be, I realize that having high expectations for what this will do to my life is the only realistic option. While many things remain uncertain, I choose to believe that God will use these months to provide healing, restoration, and growth. With all the newness of this season, I know that whatever else happens during these nine months, that He will be with me, preparing me for whatever lies ahead.