Greetings bloggers!
This week, Sarah and I get to do something that we haven’t done in almost two years. Starting tomorrow, we’re going to drop the boys off at my parents, drive out to Philadelphia, and visit with some friends and my cousin, who will be inking us both with some dope new tattoos. In other words: we’re going to travel for fun! I couldn’t be happier to get out, to see some friends and family, and to just relax a little bit.
Relaxing in pastoral work is an interesting thing I’m coming to learn. What I want most out of these three days to get away is to be totally and completely present with Sarah and those we’re visiting. I don’t want my mind to wander to an unfinished sermon, or the VBS teachings I have left to write, or any of the piles of paperwork sitting on my desk right now. And so the only way to truly relax this next week is to get everything done before I go.
Which means this is a very busy couple of days!
All of this hints at something that I’ve been toying with the last few weeks: this tension between what it means to work and to get work done, but also what it means to be content with who I am and what I bring to the table. On the one hand, I’m a huge geek about productivity. I want to have my to-do list in order, organized, and efficient. I have a process for writing my sermons which generally takes all week (so trying to get it done in two days is remarkably frustrating). I have spreadsheets and brainstorming documents that help me figure out who needs pastoral care, and when, and where. Being a pastor is a profession, so I want to be a professional.
At the same time though, I never want all that “doing” to get in the way of the truth of what Jesus told us in scriptures. His is a yoke that’s easy and a burden that’s light, and if we experience anything differently it’s not because he put it there. As everyone’s favorite heretic (said sarcastically) Rob Bell has said, Jesus calls us to be human beings, not human doings. This is one of the most counter cultural things we could come across. Our world rewards people who are so busy that they have little time for anything else, including family and recreation. So how do we balance this faithfully?
I think, at least in my life, the trick is to make sure that the doing never gets confused with my identity. This is level 7 hard, but absolutely worth it. I am a pastor by trade, and so it’s important that I am organized and productive and all of that good stuff. But it’s also important that I remember that I don’t need to do one blessed thing for Jesus to actually love me. I already have that. I support my family by the work that I do, and the paycheck that it affords me. But I should never get so caught up in my work that my family suffers as a result. Time with them is what grounds me to who I am. I do my work, but I am not only the work I do.
How do you make that distinction in your own life? Or, maybe as a bonus question, how do you procrastinate when you don’t want to do any of the work that’s in front of you? Me? I like to write blog posts…:)