Greetings bloggers!
Some of you perhaps are wondering when I will unleash my anger at the events of last evening, whereupon I witnessed the most perfect, tape to tape pass I’ve ever seen in a hockey game, only the pass was from OUR OWN GOALTENDER to THE GUY WHO SCORED THE GAME WINNING GOAL after our TEAM OUTSHOT THEM BY MORE THAN DOUBLE. While I’m sorry to disappoint, those thoughts at this moment in time are still stewing in the internal kitchen, while I am desperately trying to surpress the emotions that I am feeling and try to enjoy that my team has even made the playoffs at all. But still…here’s a live look at what happened to my soul last night:
No, instead of talking about the MOST BEAUTIFUL TAPE TO TAPE PASS I’VE EVER SEEN, I’d like to talk about everything that happened before that on Monday. You see, this weekend was one of “those” weekends in ministry. They come around every now and again, where the stars all align correctly and every event in the world happens at the same time. Our youngest youth group was having a sleep over. There was a Girl Scout ceremony the very next day, which was followed by a graduation party the very next hour. And then on Sunday it was Youth Sunday, which is always great and also always crazy busy to prepare for. There was much running around during a block of time that is usually reserved for my days off, to rest, recharge, and reboot. As a result, my tank was totally empty on Sunday afternoon.
The Original Heretic Rob Bell once taught that we as humans have a whole bunch of gauges, like a car. There’s a food gauge, a physical energy gauge, an emotional gauge, a mental gauge, all of that stuff. But there’s also this gauge that so few of us pay attention to, when your spiritual gauge runs low. It happens to pastors all the time, usually at the end of a weekend like this past one, but as with most things in life, we pastor’s aren’t special. It happens to everyone. The Spiritual Gauge seems so be empty when we have given of ourselves to the point of depletion, and we find ourselves needing to refill before anyone can ask anything of us again.
In cycling, when you are putting together training plans, you need to budget for recovery days. You can’t train full gas all day every day, or you’ll actually do lasting damage to yourself and your physical abilities. So you have to build in rest and recovery days, where you don’t ride or even workout. Some of the books I’ve read have even suggested on recovery days you should do your best to stay off your feet as much as you can, though I’m sure the people who wrote those books don’t have children in their house. If you work yourself to failure, you will absolutely come across failure.
Wouldn’t you know it, but this is a spiritual issue as well.
Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)
God seems to know, enough that it makes it in to the Top Ten, that we are going to need recovery days. “Heck,” says this commandment, “God needed a recovery day after all that creating business.” Who are we to think that we are any better than what God has asked of us?
Yet, we struggle with this, don’t we? All day yesterday, as I was home from work (with a massive headache by the way from lack of rest), I had a gnawing sense of guilt. I should be at work. I should be writing a sermon right now. I should be clearing out my e-mails. I should be…I should be…I should be… Like we have somehow convinced ourselves that we are robots in the assembly line, where we can work and work and work endlessly and never need a rest. God himself has told us that we need rest, and yet we have convinced ourselves we do not need to. What is wrong with us?
Lately I’ve been trying to listen to the invitation of Jesus in my life, as he is calling me to rest easy. He had his own approach to this idea of rest:
“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Jesus will be our rest. Jesus will be our recovery. Jesus will be our healer. Not so that we can carry no burden at all. You still have to show up to the work that you are called to. But it’s easy work, and the yoke is light, especially if we allow ourselves to recover well.
Where do you need to recover this week? What kinds of things do you do to recover and reset?