Have you ever had a weight on you that just kept pressing down with no relief in sight?

When I work out in the gym and I get to the end of a set of reps, my arms or legs can begin shaking under the weight; but at least I know that I only have one or two reps remaining so I can rest assured that there is an end coming.

Sometimes in life and ministry the weight keeps piling on and it seems like there is no end in sight. So then when our arms and legs get tired and begin shaking we kind of figure that the end result will simply be that we are crushed under it all. I kind of imagine a cartoon image of some character being flattened like a pancake underneath an anvil or a heavy wooden box.

But it is not funny in real life. I know that sometimes we have to laugh so we don’t cry, because the reality of the burden is more than anyone could possibly withstand.

But Christ, who is our strength, who has secured the victory, who has finished the work, and offers complete and abundant salvation, healing and wholeness, said that we could take His burden and yolk ourselves to Him so that our load would be light. It seems impossible and almost cruel to hear someone tell us that we don’t have to be crushed or weighed down beyond our ability to endure. We think to ourselves “that’s easy for you to say” or “you wouldn’t think that if you were in my shoes”!

Yet, may we hold out hope. May we be like Abraham who “against all hope… in hope believed” (Romans 4:18). I am praying for you that just like the words Paul shared with the Corinthians, that you would be able to bear up under it, endure and escape from that which threatens to destroy you.

I know that God is for you and with you, and that He Himself is able to deliver you.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who rescued us from so great a danger of death, and will rescue us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us

God is at work where you are right now.

If you look around you and see the people, places and things, you can know for a fact that God is working right there in your midst.

He is working there because He is always at work. He is working there because there is no place where He is not. He is working there because He cares about every person and every part of His creation.

The way that He is working is not always evident. And the outcomes may not be seen for a while.

But it is not only factual that He is at work, but it is also certain that the work He is doing is for your good. He is working to redeem you. He is working to set you free. He is working to make you whole. He is working to fill you with every good and holy thing in Him. He is working to bless with His grace and favor. He is working to reveal to you the depths of His love.

So today, look around you. See the things that seem broken. Notice the things that are beautiful. Take note of the people. Be cognizant of the feelings. In all of this, God is at work. No matter the obstacle or difficulty, God is at work to save and make whole and to make holy.

Rest in these realities. Pray and surrender your doubts and fears to Him. Simply rest in the peace of knowing that God has it all in hand.

I hope that your pastor is a great encourager and cheerleader in your life! 

I personally try all the time to increase my availability and to improve my efforts at affirming and building up my family and friends and parishioners. 

The truth is that many times I have dropped the ball. Many times I have gotten too busy, too distracted and too preoccupied to either notice the people around me or to see what they might need by way of prayer and support and Godly counsel. 

But when I slow down and allow God to open my eyes to the struggles of people around me and to break my heart for what I see, then I also notice that God places in me a deep desire to help them to know that if they will look to God and call on His name then He will save them. He will save them from their sins and even from their enemies and will deliver them through the circumstances they find themselves in. 

I find great joy in praying with someone, telling them that with God nothing is impossible and that as they look to Him they are going to make it! In one sense it kind of becomes compelling that once I encourage one person I can’t wait to find another to encourage as well. Kind of like a snowball building up as it rolls down a hill, so too one opportunity “snowballs” into another and it just builds momentum as it goes. 

If you don’t have such a pastoral encourager in your life, let’s pray together, you and I, that God will supply just such a person who can cheer you on, speak timely words of the gospel and of God’s truth to you and who will pray with and encourage you. But let’s also pray that God will compel you and I to be and to do this for others. Let’s receive the mantle from those who have gone before and take seriously God’s call on our lives to encourage others.

Can I ask you one final question? Who is encouraging your pastor? Many people seek the pastor out for help and counsel and prayer (and to complain too!) but who is the person who is praying for and encouraging your pastor? We hope and pray that your pastor is going to Jesus and that God is the One who is ultimately sourcing their inner heart and outward life and ministry but who is the earthly mouthpiece that God is using to build them up in their faith? Think about it, you may not be called to pastor a bunch of people but perhaps they are. And if you encourage and help the pastor, then in turn you are actually helping to encourage perhaps even hundreds or thousands through them. And in the meantime you are showing God’s love and tender mercy to someone who is just as human, just as in need of encouragement as you are.

Let’s pray to be encouragers and let’s pray for all the encouragers of this world!

Grace and peace, I know that with God helping you, you can do it!

Have you ever noticed someone around you “doing it wrong”? Or perhaps you realized along the way that you yourself were “doing it wrong”. This brief blog post is to get us thinking about what we should do when we see someone doing things in what we believe to be a wrong way.

First of all, we are often quite astounded at how wrong other people can get things and curious how it is that they can’t see the right way to do it. I remember one time in my life projecting this conclusion towards someone and thinking “if I were in their shoes it wouldn’t take me much at all to fix what they are messing up”. Fast forward a few years, and guess what? I found myself in “their shoes” and the craziest thing happened: it wasn’t as easy as I thought and I actually found myself rethinking what I thought I knew. 

Secondly, Jesus, the perfect Son of God, said to His disciples (and to us) that by Himself He can do nothing including making any judgments. What kind of judgments do you ask? Well the context of His statements makes it pretty clear that He really means any judgements about anything. He says He can’t and won’t judge unless He hears His Father speaking a judgment. In other words, Jesus Himself reveals that He won’t decide whether a person is wrong or right or a particular behavior is sinful or shameful or whether a specific decision is God’s will or not until and unless He has first heard His Father speaking to Him regarding the matter.

So what are we to do when we see someone else doing something wrong? Three things: 

1. First, we must pray and ask the Lord to help us know whether it is any of our business at all, and furthermore what we can learn from observing and whether we should say or do anything at all except wait, pray, watch and learn. 
2. Second, we must go to the Bible and prayerfully search out what the Scriptures say about particular thoughts, attitudes, speech, actions and reactions. The Bible truly reveals the will and heart of the Lord and by searching it we can find out about leadership, decision-making, holy living, wisdom, timing, patience and humility. 
3. Finally we must approach every situation with the attitude and humility of Jesus. We might be the ones who are making a wrong judgment. We may be jumping to conclusions. We may not know as much as we think that we do. We might have a wrong motive or a wrong perspective (think: “viewing angle”) or perhaps God is allowing us to see in order to learn and grow.

Every day we will see people saying and doing things that perhaps we do not agree with and think “I would never do that if I were in their shoes”. God allows us to notice a lot of things. But remember we can learn from bad examples as well as good ones and furthermore learning humility is a powerful thing. The slower that we are to jump to conclusions or make judgments leaves us open to learning and helps us to have a teachable spirit. Being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger helps us to be more like Jesus. Let us make sure that we try and give the benefit of the doubt, that we consider that the other person’s behavior or choice may have some wisdom in it that we can learn from. Finally if God does indeed confirm that what we are seeing is “the wrong way” or a wrong choice, then even then we can pray for that other person that God will lead them along the right path and that they will not be trapped by the enemy but instead will receive wisdom and deliverance from the Lord.

Numerous times I have found myself in discussions about pastoral ministry burnout and how to come out of it (not to mention of course what we might do to avoid it in the first place). Without oversimplifying it or making light of the pain of burnout I want to offer a few words regarding how God has brought me out and how He has also begun “safeguarding” me against future burnout.

I have found that two basic things consistently must be present in my life for me to know that I have recovered from burnout. These two things reveal a renewed health in my soul and a fresh  outlook on life and ministry. The two things are faith and an inner calm. 

When I have been in the throes of discouragement and despair I look around and realize I have little to no faith that God is present with me, that God is working on my behalf or that God is working through me or around me. When I am burned out my faith is diminished to the point that every outward thing seems stronger and more pressing than any inner or spiritual thing that God might be doing. Without faith, burnout for me is inevitable (and of course along with it comes a lack of joy, peace and strength). This is not to say that the answer is to simply “have more faith” but rather that I must seek the Lord that He might somehow by His divine power restore the faith I once had, or better yet: grant me a deeper faith that I perhaps have ever had before.

The second thing that is strikingly absent when I am suffering under burnout has been a lack of calm. Whether you call it serenity or peace the reality is that burnout for me has meant a lack of a quiet inner confidence and resting in the Lord. I have found that rather than peacefully resting in God’s promises or joyfully celebrating God and His goodness, instead there is a cacophony of noise and accusations and fears and anxious thoughts swirling within and demanding my time and energy. Sometimes the noise gives way to quiet desperation and depressed anger and fatigue. And although that place of burnout is quiet it is not calm or with peace and rest in the Lord. Burnout for me is sometimes depression or a morose and melancholy outlook on life and ministry. 

So here is my two cents: when my faith is diminished and my calm is supplanted by chaos or a sense of being downtrodden and defeated, that is when burnout is either knocking on the door or has completely moved into my heart and mind. 

What then is the answer? Books have been written on this, by men and women far wiser and more experienced than myself. So what can I say in a few words that will help? First of all, when I have been burned out I likely did not have the wherewithal to read an entire book so perhaps a few concise words can help you to begin a journey back to health and wholeness…

So just as 2 lacking things have been clearly connected with my experiences of burnout so too a receiving of those same 2 simple things have been part of my recovery. When burnout is wreaking havoc, only a God-imparted faith and calm have been sufficient to bring me out. So how can you and I receive and walk in this elusive faith and calm? 

Burnout usually is precipitated by fighting many battles (often alone), serving long hours over many days, weeks, months and years combined with a lack of visible and/or measurable results. But this comes slowly over time. So unless we want to take a long, slow journey back to health by committing 30 minutes per day for years, we will need to take 4 or 6 or 8 hours per day, multiple days per week until the healing comes. What will we do during this time to precipitate healing? 4 things:

1. Get alone in the prayer closet
2. Go regularly to a worship service at another church
3. Get together with other pastors and in a safe environment bear each other’s burdens
4. Seek out professional help from a counselor or therapist or pastor or doctor or fitness coach

When in the prayer closet for hours on end, pray, pray and pray some more. Pray the promises of Scripture. Pray the miracles of Scripture. Pray with thanksgiving. Give thanks in advance of your healing. Give praise in advance of your breakthrough.

When in the prayer closet for hours on end, read your Bible. Chunks of it at a time. Read whole books. Read and reread chapters (especially the Psalms). Do a concordance search and find out what God says about you. Compare every good promise and every name of God to the situations you find yourself in and then prayerfully claim every promise of who He is and what He does over the situations.

Go regularly to another church where you sense the Lord leading you and through whose ministry you know you can be poured into and have a safe place to worship, rest and listen to God’s voice shaping and forming you. Don’t just go once or twice. Go regularly until God heals you and then keep going so as to sense His continued sourcing of Shalom in your life.

Find pastors you admire and look up to and who are safe to talk to, confess your temptations and sins and struggles to. Ask questions of those you respect and who build you up in the faith. Don’t hide your struggles from yourself or from them and let them speak into you, let them pray over you. There will of course be time for you to share your pain and suffering but don’t neglect letting them fill you with their hope and faith, wisdom and knowledge.

Finally seek out professional help for your mind, heart, spirit, relationships and physical well-being. All of these are interconnected and God has graciously provided professionals who are trained and equipped to address each of these. Don’t let any stigma or preconceived notion keep you from seeking out help from God’s servants. We hope that our people will come to us when they need spiritual help and we train accordingly, recognize then that others are available to you as well. 

This is already longer than I intended but let me close with this. For your pain and suffering I am truly sorry. I have gone through burnout and the pain is almost unbearable. I grieve with you and pray for you and for your family. Please feel free to reach out if you need a listening ear, Biblical counsel or prayer partner. And though this is brief, please don’t think that I am not hearing your cries or oversimplifying the process of recovery. It probably took a long time to finally break your spirit and it might take a long time for it to be restored. But I also believe in the God of miracles who can do in a moment (or a series of moments) what normally takes a great deal of time. Please, go today to your prayer closet and make plans even now to seek out help from other churches, other pastors and other professionals so that God can bring you through this burnout and into a place of vibrant joy, faith and peace in the Holy Spirit. I know God is able and He can do it for you!

Have you ever stopped to think about all the things we spend time worrying about and working on, and yet they really don’t matter?

I have often asked myself the question “Ten thousand years from now, what will it matter?”.

Somehow this question can help to put things in perspective. Most often the situation doesn’t matter, but my response to it does. Many times the temporary outcome doesn’t matter but how I behave myself in the midst of it does matter immensely. 

Think about it: ultimately it doesn’t matter how long we have to wait at a traffic light, or which team wins a sports game, or who wins an argument. In 10,000 years we won’t remember or care. 

But what will matter is how we brought honor and glory to God with our behavior in the midst of the situation and whether or not our behavior helped others to look to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. 

• Yeah, we could blow through the intersection angry that we had to wait.
• Yeah, we could lose our patience and “blow our top” when the sports game doesn’t go the way we wanted.
• Yeah, we might be able to show how smart we are and argue down someone else.

But what about pleasing God?

What about helping our neighbor?

What about loving people?

What about getting people into a relationship with Jesus Christ so they can be delivered from sin, guilt, shame, death and hell?

Please don’t be nearly so concerned about having everything turn out just like you want it to in this life. Instead, be completely committed to living in such a way that people will be drawn to Jesus and so that in 10,000 years you will rejoice that God was able to use your behavior on earth to usher other people into His eternal kingdom!

Sometimes I think it becomes far too easy to be distracted and preoccupied with thoughts about wanting to be productive and effective rather than to just put our hand to the work. 

What I mean is this: we spend time analyzing our work, we think about and discuss our mission, vision and goals, we critique ourselves and try to determine if we measure up. In the meanwhile we have spent a great deal of time, energy and effort trying to see if we are doing the job instead of taking that same time, energy and effort and putting it into loving people and telling the gospel story. 

There is of course a time and place for evaluating our work to make sure that we aren’t spinning our wheels, but sometimes we end up having analysis paralysis or get stuck striving for perfection or even in the comparison trap, when instead if we just put our plow to the ground and started in we might just find it doesn’t take long to see progress. 

So what should we be doing instead of analyzing, worrying, comparing or perfecting our work? 

• We should call someone today
• We should visit someone today
• We should write a note/letter/card to someone today
• We should pray today for others and for the needs we know God alone can handle
• We should read the Bible, memorize it, meditate upon it and then share it with others
• We should help someone today
• We should look for opportunities to encourage and cheer people on
• We should be thankful for what we have
• We should look for opportunities to be generous and sacrificial

Of course the list could go on, but you get the point. As CSLewis once said: “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him”. 

Don’t fret about whether you are being effective and productive, get busy talking to people, sharing the gospel, loving and serving and you will soon enough realize that you are have been effective and productive!

Remember too this Scripture: 2 Peter 1:5-8 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Emphasis Added)

Dear Pastor,

Do you ever struggle with the idea that you don’t have what it takes? Do you ever think that you should not be the person others come to, when they have questions about God and the Bible and spiritual matters?

Do you think, “I’m not right for this” or “I’m not good enough to be a pastor”?

If you are anything like me I have a variety of different thoughts that come to me whenever I need to initiate and reach out to someone to discuss spiritual matters or when they come to me for prayer or that I might help them in their faith journey. Here is a partial list of the thoughts that I have:

• “I don’t have the time to deal with this”
• “I don’t think I have the patience or strength needed for this situation”
• “I haven’t been in the Bible or prayer enough to be any use to this person”
• “I don’t have enough wisdom or experience or the gifts to really be able to help”
• “My heart is so far from perfect, and since I know my own temptation and sin how can I ever help anyone?”
• “Even though I have been praying and reading my Bible, I still don’t know that I have what it takes”

These thoughts come like missiles into my mind and threaten to destroy me before I am ever able to pick up the phone or engage with the person in front of me. So if we face this, what then should we do?

I want to share two things with you:

1. May we never get to a place where we think that we are exactly the person others should seek out when they are in trouble. May we never get caught up in thinking that we have it figured out, have it together or that we have somehow “arrived” enough to personally handle that which comes our way. Let us be humble. Let us see God for who He is, see ourselves for who we are and confess the difference. Let us pray to be like Isaiah who cried “Woe is me!” when He saw the Lord in His glory and was reminded and made aware of both his own personal insufficiency and the amazing grace of God.
   
2. Furthermore, let us pray and think to ourselves when we get the phone call, visit or other communique’:
   1. “Although I am not enough to answer this, God is” or
   2. “Though I am tired, weary, and weak, I know that God in me is sufficient to address this”, or
   3. “Though my sins and temptations should disqualify me for this, God’s grace is sufficient to forgive me, cleanse me, save and sanctify me and use me”.
      
      Finally let us prayerfully and with great attentiveness, listen to the other person and listen to the Holy Spirit. Then let us proceed cautiously and tenderly to point people to Jesus and His Word and to pray with them, leaning on His promises and goodness. Let us not allow our own insufficiency to hinder His gracious and powerful ability to use a willing, surrendered and humble vessel.

Finally, there are things that we can do in advance to fight off the accusations and doubts that come in the day to day moments of ministry. Read A LOT of Scripture, spend daily time in prayer, fast weekly (if you can) to spend more time with God and to learn the gift of sacrifice, memorize Scripture (particularly what God says about you) and finally get into a pastoral group for edification and encouragement.

Let me know in the comments if you have had similar thoughts when the phone rings or someone comes calling and how you have handled it.

Remember: Christ is with us, Christ is in us!

My soul is yearning.

I am longing for more of God. I want to feel His presence abiding all around me and deep within me. 

I want His thoughts to permeate my mind and His love to consume my emotions. 

I am yearning for an awareness of the nearness of God all the time, no matter what else is going on around me.

I long for peace. I long for contentment. I long for an inner stillness and calm that only comes when I am being held by the Lord. 

There is a peace from God that is so sublime and so beyond all comprehension and it is available to all who are still in His presence. As Hosea reminds us “Wait for your God continually” (Hosea 12:6)

While waiting before the Lord in worship and prayer, the goodness of God washes over me and says “peace be still”

If you are yearning for this as well, lay down everything, surrender it all, let go of all you are holding so tightly to, confess your sins, repent of any ungodly ways,  humbly bow in your heart before God and then as you wait, you will taste and see the goodness of the Lord. 

My soul is yearning and my God is willing to fill my soul!

Very often we know the things we ought to do.

It’s not that we need to read a book, consult a teacher or attend a seminar to find out. We already know many of the things we should be doing. We should spend less than we make, we should eat right, we should exercise, we should sleep well, we should say no to harmful and unhealthy things. 

And yet, when it comes right down to it, many times we don’t do the things we already know we should be doing.

Much of this is because things are easier said than done. 

Telling someone about the mountain you climbed last year is easier than climbing a new mountain today. 

Telling someone else how they should handle a situation in their life is a lot easier than volunteering to handle their hardships for them. 

We know that we should be more patient, but it seems like we just don’t have any more patience in our tanks.

We know we should be more generous but it seems impossible to pry our hands and hearts open to give more freely to others.

We know we need to stop indulging unhealthy things (spiritually, emotionally, physically, etc) but then we think, “maybe just one more” or “maybe I’ll start a new path tomorrow”.

Loving our neighbor (without even yet considering loving our enemy) seems impossible, when we are tired and busy and our neighbor is difficult.

So here is the practical advice that I need to hear myself:

• Start small
• Start today
• The hardest two steps are the first step and the one when it gets more difficult
• Find help from someone stronger, wiser and more capable
• Don’t do it alone
• Don’t be a perfectionist
• Stop trying to do so much
• Don’t let the distractions control you

• So go ahead and say something nice to that person.
• Go ahead and step outdoors and go for a walk. Maybe tomorrow another walk or a bike ride.
• Open the Bible and read one verse, then another, then another. 
• Open your mouth and say you’re sorry, tell them you love them, compliment them, give them thanks.
• Tell God 10 things you are thankful for today. Find another 10 tomorrow.
• Do one small chore at home, then another
• Get rid of that clutter. Throw something away today. Give something away tomorrow.
• Give God your biggest 3 problems.
• Leave something on your plate at every meal. Add a fruit or veggie.

Doing what we were created to and called to is not possible without the One who created us and the One who calls us. God is present, He is able and He is willing to empower us, guide us and source us. We have to pray, we have to receive His instruction and we have to walk by faith (trusting that He is guiding us and that He is providing for us and protecting us along the way). To do what we know we need to takes effort and perseverance, but God offers to give us both. Let us pray fervently for God to cut out of our lives what doesn’t matter and graft in what does. And let us pray that we will obey in faith even if it seems impossible or that we are too weak, too foolish or too poor to be able to do it. He is able and He will do it!

This article is still a bit reductionist. It’s just not as easy as I am making it sound. But hopefully we will not get bogged down in it all and instead we will just pray, believe, receive and obey. Let’s keep it simple, do something today and persevere until God helps us to become what He is shaping us to be.