Monday morning: In the past seventy-two hours, I have given five sermons, prayed and talked individually with at least twenty-five people in need of some sort of spiritual change, listened to the complaints of two “hurt” people, and chatted with a couple whose marriage is unraveling.
I am tired, feeling uncertain, and irritated that I didn’t do better yesterday.
In the next forty-eight hours, my datebook says I will have attended:
- a major staff meeting
- spent an evening with several-dozen new members
- had breakfast with one of our elders
- visited with a distraught wife whose husband is depressed
- lunched with a pastor who wants to talk about how to develop visionary leaders
- met with an older couple who are desperately lonely because most of their friends have died or gone to Florida
- “dinnered” with members of our pastoral team who want to propose some dreams about the future.
Interspersed among these hours will be the finishing of this article, a first glance at next weekend’s preaching material, and a response to about thirty e-mails.
Obviously, I’ve not said anything about private time with my wife, conversations with my grandchildren (who will definitely call), and some badly needed introverted moments for myself.
In the midst of all this, I am expected (by myself and others) to be a spiritually passionate person! By that I mean a person who evidences a touch of wisdom, grace, power, and faith (words that characterized Stephen in Acts 6) and makes it available to others. Without those qualities of spirit, my effectiveness as a pastor quickly sags.
Yet I feel I am constantly on spiritual discharge with precious little time to refill. I’ve never forgotten Jesus’ words to Simon Peter when the disciple was incredulous that the Lord was asking, “Who touched me?” while in the middle of a crowd—”I know that power has gone out of me.”
The acquisition, maintenance, and siphoning off of spiritual energy is the chief concern of pastors who want to stay vital. The long-range result of running on empty is horrific: becoming bitter-spirited, reduced to going through the motions; falling into ministry-destroying sin; losing intimacy with God and spouses and friends; and (if nothing else) hating our work.
As Ruth Graham once said when asked if she’d ever thought of divorcing Billy (“Divorce? Never! Murder, several times.”), I think about ministry: Quit? Never! Run away to Switzerland and climb mountains? Every Monday!
How does a pastor refresh the spirit?
Refreshing the spirit
What little I know about the freshening of the inner spirit, I’ve learned the hard way, mostly through failures, dry times, the awful moments when I knew I had to speak into the souls of people but had virtually nothing to offer.
I’ve rarely lacked words, ideas, or a glad hand for people. But I’ve not always had the “right stuff” that comes only from the depth of a filled soul. I offer you a few ideas that have made my Monday mornings more manageable.
Acknowledge my sinfulness
In the past, I’ve tried to act, speak, and impress people as if I were a reincarnation of Oswald Chambers. I sometimes tried to select the correct spiritual-sounding responses, pray prayers that sounded “godly,” and engage in the doubletalk of false modesty. I wonder if I appeared as ridiculous as I felt.
Then one day it became apparent I had the capacity to be a terrible sinner, and the cat was out of the bag. Saint Paul and I had a similar problem: sinfulness. I am a sinner who makes many return trips to the cross for forgiveness and restoration. So why not acknowledge it and get on to delighting in God’s mercy?
I’ve learned to be quick to acknowledge my sinfulness to others. Paul’s self-disclosure (“I am the chief of sinners”) is a good start as a public declaration.
Downsize my word output
Few leaders know how to ask questions of others, how to seek what God may be saying in other people’s experiences. Our instinct appears to be to speak of everything we know, as if doing so is the only way to authenticate ourselves.
I’ve been working hard to stop telling people of my latest insights, my spiritual intentions, and my opinions about every leader, every organization, and every ministry. I’m not quite as smart or wise as I used to be (he said, tongue-in-cheek), and I’m finding that saying less is better. Talking too quickly, too much, and too cutely is destructive to the spirit. The spiritual men and women I’ve come to admire were generally quiet-spirited and more silent than verbose.
This is hard for those of us who are extravagantly verbal. But I have driven myself to become more of a question-asker and less of an answer-giver. I have come to appreciate the wisdom of Brigid Hermann who once observed that the more we talk to others about all we are learning and experiencing, the less we need to talk to God.
Map each day
I now map each day according to a purpose. In the front of my journal is “my daily intention,” which describes what significant living means to me. My daily intention has been forged out of much meditation, prayer, and experimentation. Like the banks of a river, it helps me to channel my energies in right directions.
For example, my daily intention speaks of cheerful and reverent communion with the Father, cooperation and devotion in community with those I love, and pastoral and humble commitment to service in Christ’s kingdom. Each morning, through this three-fold lens, I meditate on the day in front of me. It provides shape for my prayers, a basis for my meditative reading, and a check on my personal planning.
Reconceive God’s love
In my younger years, my love for God was based on a sentimental or romantic model. No wonder I had trouble finding much reality in it—or even sustaining it. My love for God is now much better perceived on a father/son model. It is an adventure in understanding how to honor God; to reverence, obey, and thank him; to express appropriate sorrow for blunders and sin; and to pursue a “shyness” in which I might hear him whisper into my soul.
These are not the activities of a romantic relationship; they make better sense only when I come to God as the divine parent.
Dirty my hands
As strange as it may sound, I have found a key to spirituality is participating in the common work of my home and marriage. For too many years, I gave the management and maintenance of our home, our social calendar, our finances, and our personal life (laundry, cooking, etc.) to my wife so I could maximize my efforts in the “big stuff.” People in leadership positions (particularly men) have a tendency to slough off the simple work of a home.
But in such work, a portal to genuine humility is found. Humility is not acquired by being modest; it is found in embracing the simple matters of ordinary work. The monastics have known this for centuries.
Not only will I take out the garbage or clean a bathroom because I’m asked, I assume such chores as an ongoing responsibility. I find much of God’s presence (and an upgrade of respect from my wife) in doing the simple things.
Renounce fixing as a way of life
I now reject what I feel is the superficial intensity of much Christian ministry: that everything is a problem, that every person needs to be fixed, and that all the work of the kingdom has to be done by the time I die. Ministry is my life, but I am no longer reluctant to make sure there is fun in my calendar (with Gail and with carefully cultivated friends). I laugh a lot more now and make sure my enthusiasm for life is high every day.
In my conversations with pastors, I am dismayed at how many have put their personal desires on hold. That can build a pit of anger and personal sadness. As a young husband/father, I gave up skiing for other priorities. But later in life, my wife encouraged me to return to the slopes. Now a high point of my year comes with a couple days in the Rockies. I’m first on the lift in the morning and last on it in the late afternoon. I’ve learned to play again.
In addition, I no longer have to be right every time I open my mouth. I no longer have to be best, no longer have to control every situation, no longer have to be at every national function of pastors and Christian leaders, and no longer have to offer an opinion or endorsement on every dream, vision, and movement that someone feels God has called him or her to launch.
I have actually learned to say no. I don’t have to market myself, sell myself, or offer myself.
Spend time with the weak
I used to try to spend all of my time with the strong. I was urged to prioritize my time. Even now, the organizational leader in me says, “Spend time with the folks with the big bucks, the political instincts, the best connections, and the charisma.” Then one day I became one of the weak, and I learned what it was like when several came alongside for no better reason than to assure me they loved me. As a result, I have tried hard to learn how to become a friend to the weak.
The weak are not necessarily people with problems; they are rather the “unnoticed”: the very old, the very young, the socially awkward people. Recently, at our Wednesday night gathering at Grace Chapel, I asked a young mother if I could hold her baby while she went through a serving line and enjoyed a brief meal with husband and friends. The baby and I got along famously, and the mom and dad seemed touched by the fact that a pastor had affection for their most-beloved child.
The old, the deeply repentant, the pained, and children know a lot more about reality than the strong. I’ve discovered the weak can say some of the most fascinating things. Perhaps that’s because God spends most of his time, according to Isaiah 57:15, with “the contrite and lowly in spirit.”
Come to the quiet
Going to bed early most evenings has afforded a chance to seize early morning hours before calls, e-mails, and appointments begin their relentless intrusion. In the quietness, the Scriptures, ancient liturgies, prayers, and the spiritual reflections of the masters have informed my soul. I have come to love the Bible all over again—and with it the reflections of the ancients and not-so-ancients from a score of traditions.
Someday after I have left this place, my children will have a problem: what to do with the more than thirty-five years of journals that tell my story of ups and downs, achievements and humiliations. If they choose to read snippets here and there, they will come to see how ordinary a man I was, but how kind God has been in these quiet moments to fill the empty spaces with his promises and affirmations.
Altar of spiritual passion
Such spiritual quests are not a guarantee against failure or defeat. But if they become habitual, they offer a place to go, a form to follow in the moment of defeat.
So on this Monday morning after a wild weekend of activity, I come to my private altar with my Bible, my reflective literature, my laptop, and my near-empty soul. I’ve been here before. God has something to say to this tired soul. And when he’s finished, I’ll be a reasonably new man again. Spiritual passion found.
Gordon MacDonald is pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts. Talking too quickly, too much, and too cutely is destructive to the spirit.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
