I Quit My Job. Then the Questions Got Loud.

The last week has actually been really good.

I met my new grandson for the first time. I went to the LSU/Clemson game in person and watched my Tigers put an absolute 51–10 beat down on Clemson, in Death Valley, at night, which I will argue with anyone is the greatest place on earth to watch a college football game. My wife and I had two nights in a hotel with just the two of us. I spent a couple of days with my mom. I got to see my oldest son and my daughter.

Those are not small things. They are the best ones. They are the kind of things you are supposed to slow down and be grateful for, and I am. I really am.

So why do I still feel like I am in a funk?

I think part of the answer is what happens when I wake up in the morning and there is no usual calendar pressure. I reach for my phone and realize nobody is waiting on a decision from me. There is no team that needs direction, no problem that has already found its way to my inbox, no number I am responsible for moving, no meeting I am already mentally preparing for.

Two weeks ago, I resigned from my job. I believe it was the right decision, and I still believe that today. But I did not fully anticipate what it would feel like when all of that motion suddenly stopped.

That is where the questions start.

What is next? Did I make the right decision? Will the right opportunity come? What if it takes longer than I expected? What am I supposed to be doing right now? Why do I feel so off when I know so many things are still good?

The strange thing is that I know the answers to the deeper questions.

I know who I am. I know whose I am. I know my identity is not found in a title, an organization or a paycheck. I have written about that. I have taught it. SONSHIP™ was born out of that journey in my own life.

But knowing the answer does not mean the question stops asking.

And maybe that is one of the things I am learning in this season. Sometimes transition feels like grief because something can be right to leave and still hard to lose.

For a long time, there was always something that needed me. A team to lead, a problem to solve, a number to hit, a decision to make, a conversation to have, a thing to build.

And I want to be careful here, because I do not think the right Christian response is to pretend none of that should matter.

It does matter.

There is something deeply satisfying about being useful, carrying responsibility, having people depend on you, solving a problem that needed solving and leading something toward a better place. I do not think that is necessarily ego, and I do not think men need to apologize for feeling alive when they are building, leading, providing and pouring themselves into something that matters.

God made us to work.

Before sin entered the world, Adam was placed in the garden “to work it and keep it.” Work was not a result of the fall. The frustration, toil and thorns that infected our work came afterward.

That distinction matters.

Work is not merely something we do after we figure out who we are. It is one of the God-given places where we live out who we are. We were made to cultivate, steward, build, serve, protect, provide, create and contribute.

So when meaningful responsibility suddenly disappears, I do not think the answer is to shame myself for missing it.

I miss leading. I miss building. I miss being needed in that way. I miss the weight of responsibility and the satisfaction that comes from carrying it well.

That does not mean I have forgotten who I am. It means something good is absent.

There are parts of life that are not our identity but are still deeply connected to how God made us. Work is one of them. Responsibility is one of them. The opportunity to use our gifts in service of other people is one of them. Pouring our strength into something that matters is one of them.

So part of this funk may simply be grief over the sudden absence of something meaningful.

I know who I am. I am still a son. But being a son does not make me less hungry to build, lead, solve, carry and contribute. If anything, it should free me to do those things with greater clarity because I am not asking them to create an identity for me.

They become an expression of an identity I have already received.

And right now, I miss doing them.

I think that is part of why this season has felt strange. I can know the truth and still feel the ache. I can know the Father is faithful and still wonder what He is doing. I can trust the decision and still feel unsettled by the silence that came after it.

Those things can exist at the same time.

Maybe one of the first things I am learning is not to panic about that. Not every hard day means something is deeply wrong. Not every question means I have lost my way. Not every moment of uncertainty needs to be interpreted as evidence that I made the wrong decision.

Sometimes you are simply in transition. Sometimes something good has ended and the next expression of that good thing has not begun yet.

That is why it has been important for me to actually name what I am missing instead of spiritualizing it away.

I miss the team. I miss the pace. I miss the responsibility. I miss solving problems. I miss being in the middle of something that required my strength, experience and attention.

There is nothing unhealthy about admitting that.

In fact, naming it helps me understand the funk better. I am not searching for an identity I lost. I am feeling the absence of some good things that had become a meaningful part of my everyday life.

Once I can name that, I can return to what is settled.

That word has become especially important to me.

One of the Four Marks of SONSHIP is SETTLED: The Father settled me.

Settled does not mean I have every answer. It does not mean I always feel confident about what comes next. It does not mean I am never restless, disappointed or in a funk.

It means the deepest question has already been answered. I know who I am, and I know whose I am.

That is settled even when everything around it is not.

And when I look at the other marks, I realize this season is touching every one of them.

OPEN: I no longer hide.

For me, that means I do not have to pretend this season is easier than it is. I do not have to wait until I have a clean ending before I talk about what is happening in the middle. I can say I miss the work. I can admit the questions still come. I can be grateful for an incredible week with people I love and still acknowledge that something in me feels off.

There is freedom in not having to pretend.

STEADY: I am present and dependable.

Steady probably looks less impressive than I want it to right now. It looks like continuing to show up for my wife, my children, my family and the things God has already placed in front of me. It means refusing to allow uncertainty about tomorrow to make me absent today.

There are still people to love. There are still commitments to keep. There is still work in front of me, even if it does not currently arrive through a packed calendar and an organizational title.

And then there is PURPOSEFUL: I have somewhere to pour my life.

That one may be the mark I feel most acutely right now.

I want somewhere to pour my life vocationally. I think men are made to want that. I want responsibility. I want to build. I want to lead. I want my strength, experience and gifts to be spent on something that matters.

I do not believe that desire competes with sonship. I think it can flow directly from it.

A son does not spend his life trying to earn a place in the Father's house. In Christ, he has already been brought in. From that settled place, he is free to spend himself, serve others, carry responsibility and pour his life into the work God gives him.

My purpose has not disappeared. I am a husband, a father, a grandfather, a friend, a son of the Father, and there are already places where my life is being poured out. What I do not know yet is where some of my vocational strength, leadership and experience will be poured next.

That is different from being without purpose.

And while I wait to see that more clearly, I can keep moving.

For me right now, that means making the call, sending the resume, writing the thing, having the conversation, spending time with my family, working on SONSHIP and paying attention to the people and opportunities God puts in front of me.

Not frantically, and not because I think enough activity will somehow force clarity. I just do not want uncertainty to make me passive.

There is almost always a next faithful thing to do, even when there is not yet a clear picture of where all of it is going.

That may be one of the most practical things I am learning in this season: do not panic about the funk. Name what is actually missing. Return to what is settled. Then keep moving faithfully.

I do not mean that as a four-step formula for getting yourself together. I am still living it. But if you are in a season like this too, maybe do not rush to diagnose yourself or assume that feeling off means you have lost your way.

Sometimes the ache is simply the absence of something good. Sometimes the questions keep coming even when you already know the answers. And sometimes faithfulness looks less like having clarity and more like continuing to walk while you wait for the next part of the story to take shape.

I am not all the way out of the funk yet, and maybe that is part of why I wanted to write this now instead of later. I do not want to only tell stories once they are resolved and neatly packaged. There is something important about being honest in the middle, when you know what is true but are still waiting to see what God is doing next.

And this is one of the reasons I care so much about the SONSHIP™ study.

The Four Marks were never intended to be branding language or a handful of ideas that look good on a page. They came out of a much longer journey in my own life, and they are meant to be lived.

To be SETTLED when life around you feels unsettled. To remain OPEN when it would be easier to hide what you are actually feeling. To stay STEADY when you cannot see very far down the road. And to live PURPOSEFULLY, continuing to pour your life into what God has already entrusted to you while trusting Him with what comes next.

If you are a man wrestling with some of these same questions, I want you to go through the SONSHIP study.

Not because I think a study makes the questions disappear. Mine haven't.

But because every man needs some things that are settled before the unsettled seasons come. He needs to know who he is, whose he is, and that his calling has not disappeared simply because the circumstances around him changed.

I know who I am, and I know whose I am. That part is settled.

The questions still come.

But the questions do not get the final word.

The Father does.

And settled men can still have unsettled seasons.