I Refuse to Kill Myself on April 11, 07
What a catchy title! Wouldn’t you say? Over the last eleven years of pastoral ministry, there have been times where I discovered that I’m human. I hate it when that happens, too. But I have to give credit to pastors because until you wear the shoes and drink the punch, you can’t know the depth of exasperation that comes in the phrase, “I’m killing myself for these people…” That’s a very human moment. It means we see the reality that we have one life to live and that life is passing — many times faster than we had hoped. Pastors are real people too (start playing nice music here).
I remember thinking about five years ago how fast “ministry” would come at me and saying, “Don’t answer the phone, I haven’t had time to nurse my wounds from the last battle.” Often, this struggle has been magnified and multiplied by the speed of the information age. In other words, somebody fires-off an “offended email” at you and if you don’t respond within the day, they’re offended all over again because you’re ignoring them and their problem. This usually isn’t the case, it’s that you need a couple days to just think through how to honor the Lord in the situation and respond to them in a good way. But, if you do that, you start receiving calls from other people who they’ve called or Skyped all over the world about their issue. Technology and speed are great - sometimes.
Please understand that this is just one illustration of the many pressures that we face that come with the Calling. And, please know that I know that everybody has stress and pressure wherever they work and live — because that’s life. Ok, with that concession, I’m referencing life from the special role that I’ve been able to play in it. The point is that in this line of life-work, there can be a great build-up of continuous pressure to accomplish, complete, and please both projects and people. As one author put it, we get the incredible feeling of “hyper-responsibility”. And for some time, I lived under that immense load…
Until I discovered the gift of the Sabbath. Don’t miss the p
oint here — I knew the command of the Sabbath was in the Bible. But sadly, I had been taught or the Sabbath had been portrayed in a “secondary/non-important” light. “It was for the Jews, you know, pre-Jesus.” Oh, how much life-joy was missing in the years that it was “ok” to ignore the Sabbath. What many Christians don’t see today is that the Sabbath was a Creation thing of time. It was placed into the Creation-order. This means it was given to mankind to know his Creator. Man was created Friday. On Saturday, he rested — very first thing to do opportunity to know.
As our family has weekly received the gift of the Sabbath from the Father for some time now, it’s been on my heart to write about different nuggets and treasures that we’ve gathered from its joy and study. So, I think I’ll start the series, “I Refuse to Kill Myself” as a Shabat-joy series to share what I’ve learned about my Creator. Thank Goodness that Italy is a “slow” country where that slow-ness actually helps us in this journey of discovery. I feel bad for those of you in the States who will have to work stop extra hard.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Rob, over the last hour or so Shirlynne and I have been catching up on your SMG site, seeing the latest pictures of Jessi and Reilly in Venice O(now that’s an Italian job!), reviewing your photo gallery’s and simply reminiscing warmly and fondly of the memories of our Sabbath days at Serenissima. I just re-read your tribute to Troy Gilbert (what a gorgeous family - how are they doing?) and just want to continue to encourage you in your and Sandy’s calling. Our home building here in Hawaii is moving along (finally) and we hope to have it completed by late July in time for a visit by some missionary friends of ours in Israel. Please consider our home and prayers for your ministry a part of the Sabbath rest God has provided for you in this life. woould love to see the four of you in Hawaii with us one day.
Comment by Mike Dredla — 4/29/2007 @ 9:20 am