Is It Faith Or Is It Delusion

The last few years have really been difficult for me spiritually. At no time have I ever stopped believing in God or loving Him but I have had my faith severely shaken. I know that I have been called to ministry and that God has given me the gift to preach as well as a passion for people. In the year 2000 the Lord even gave me a vision of starting a church along with the name but I knew it was not time. During that time period I suffered extreme loss in my life with the death of my mother and the end of my new marriage all in the same year. This took such a toll on me  that it affected my performance as a teacher and I ended up resigning. I spent time in the scriptures, prayer and reading lots of books. I got very close to the Lord and He opened the door to meet the woman who would become my new wife.

I have always served underneath pastors making sure to learn as much as I could trying to make sure I stayed in my lane. Even after I got ordained I continued to learn and serve until I felt the Lord say it was time to move on. I attempted to start a church but it failed and figured it was not the right time. In 2006 I started a new job and met a co-worker who was a christian and we connected right away. She and I talked about meeting each others spouses and we ended up starting a home bible study that began to grow. I felt it was the Lord leading us to try to start church again but it once again failed. My family and I joined a church once again and served faithfully until I sent my resume in for an open pastor position. A seasoned pastor and missionary took me underneath his wing and let me know he saw the potential in me and recognized God's call on my life and emphasized to me that I needed to be in ministry.

The church where I submitted my resume called me as their pastor and my job was to revitalized the church because of decline. I felt like I was tailored made for this situation and God put me there but in the end it failed. So here I am with all of these failures in trying to do ministry and my faith extremely shaken up. After the last experience I decided that I would no longer seek to start a church but to focus on my family and doing ministry in other ways. In July 2013 my gallbladder failed and had to be removed and in January 2014 my stomach began hurting really bad and I had to have my appendix removed. I ended up having complications from the surgery by developing a small bowel obstruction and also getting a bad case of c-diff, which almost killed me. At the end of it all I spent almost a month in the hospital and lost about twenty-five pounds. I was still having extreme pain and my doctor kept insisting it was adhesions but I knew it was more. My medical leave was up and my doctor would not extend it and before I could get a second opinion I either had to go back to work or resign. I was still sick so I trusted the Lord and resigned. I went to another doctor and found out I had another bacterial infection called campylobacteriosis.

At this point, I found myself being really insecure in my faith. I could understand why God was doing amazing things in my friends and peers lives but I couldn't get off the ground. Now I am at home and fully recovered but having a difficult time finding a job but God is still providing. Our landlord informed me of his intent to sell the house we are renting within a year and our only vehicle is not working. In the middle of all of that I find out that the First Presbyterian Church in our city has shut down after 138 years and their property is for sale. I see pictures of the property online and my imagination goes wild! All I see is ministry happening in there and me leading it. The only problem is I don't have $850,000 and I don't have any people. Is this faith or is it delusion? I am wondering is this me trying to conjure this up or is God trying to stretch my faith? Either which way I have no clue as what to do and I certainly don't want to fail again.