Finding God in Tenure Difficulty

The results are also largely out of your control. Once a file is submitted for review, you are at the mercy of others to ultimately find you worthy or not.

Not long ago I found myself in this position. Amid the positive reviews I received from many reviewing my tenure application, a very negative letter was also placed in my file. This negative recommendation triggered further review and the real possibility of a failed process. 

Anxious Nights, Suspicions, and Fears

When I read the letter, I thought my academic career was done. My anxiety and heartbreak was palpable. I retain a vivid memory of getting the news from my dean a few days before our university-wide Christmas party. It was an unwelcome and unexpected holiday surprise—so much so, close friends thought it was a practical joke I was pulling on them.

What followed were anxious nights, suspicion, tears, anger, feelings of betrayal, desires for revenge, potential lawsuits, and ultimately a depression-induced malaise questioning what I was doing and why. The suspense went on from December until the first week of May—a blink for most of us in the academic world but a very difficult span for my work–tempered by the inability to plan and no confidence that the outcome would not lead to major change.

God Allowed It

To spare further suspense I was eventually granted tenure. And while that is good news, the better news is major changes were exactly what God wanted from me and he started them through this hurt. He used the letter to bring it about. Though another may have meant it for harm—God allowed it for my good.

The confusion, disappointment, and chaos around this letter and its potential outcome forced me to seek God like I had not done in many years. And as I sought God, I realized my walk had grown stale and my dependence on self instead of Him had cost me and my family peace. We suffered a great deal of anxiety. My sense of self-reliance had shrunk God’s influence in many of my life decisions to the point of nothing more than a whisper.

Restored Hope

But in a way only God can do, over that tenure resolution time, I discovered my feelings of frustration associated with receiving that bad review and my fear of associated consequences betrayed poor motivations in me.

Only after I shared my thoughts and feelings with God was I met with His healing, mercy, and gentle correction.

God used the hurt and sense of loss to recreate and restore in me new hope and the desire to be more like Christ and less like the prideful, selfish individual I had allowed myself to become.

Within God’s Loving Plan

In the grand scheme of things, five months of tenure uncertainty compares poorly to the pain and suffering many others experience when God sets out to fashion a work within. But it is a valuable experience in my lexicon. Not only because God ultimately provided for me, but more importantly, because He also changed me.

God loves me (loves us) too much to let us become something less than we can become in the promises and provisions He has for us. I am not saying everything associated with that experience is alright in me–even now. But I do take comfort in knowing that within God’s loving plan for us, sometimes He has to break our heart to fix it.