Sometimes you have to consciously allow yourself to be refreshed. Psalm 23 describes lying down in green pastures and visiting quiet waters as one way weary souls are renewed by God. How do today’s Christian leaders find refreshment? How do they re-energize body and spirit? Here’s a sampling.
Cowboy Heaven
Most Saturdays I turn on the Family Channel at about 1:00 and watch four or five cowboy shows—Bonanza, The Rifleman, The Virginian—with a large bowl of popcorn and a cola. I look at the wide-open spaces, and my mind leaves all the things I have to do.
I go to the gym to shoot basketball. I don’t run the full court as I used to, but I play horse or sit on the bleachers and listen to the balls bouncing, see the kids screaming, see the guys slam-dunking—completely away from anything that resembles day-to-day ministry. It takes me back to a time when things were simpler. Laughter and joy return.
It’s refreshing to do something completely different. My wife and mother-in-law and I go to a movie every week or so. I listen to music: jazz and some of the latest contemporary sounds. That does two things. It keeps me in touch with what’s going on in the culture, and I find new rhythms and sounds.
—Gerald Durley, pastor Providence Missionary Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia
Blue Sky
I recently started flying lessons. There is a simple joy from being in the air, seeing God’s creation from another angle, sensing yourself as fully alive. It’s still pretty new for me, so a lot of things are foreign and demand concentration. When I land, there’s an exhilaration that’s hard to explain.
Spending time with my family also brings joy. Each of my children has a great sense of humor and sees a lot more positive things in life than I do. Through my children’s eyes, I often see that the life God has given us is very good.
We experience a lot of joy just being around each other. Our vacation this year wasn’t fantastic as far as where we went, but just the joy of riding along together in the car and talking about different things was good.
We try to have as many evening meals together as we can. My husband and children see things with a joyful heart, and it encourages me to do the same. Once in a while we’ll intentionally watch something funny on TV and enjoy laughing together.
God has made life to be enjoyed. I enjoy walking in nature. We have a river’s edge trail here in Great Falls that follows the Missouri for eight miles. Walking that and seeing where God does his good stuff is refreshing and puts things back in perspective. It reminds me God is bigger than all the problems I face, that he’s the Creator. If he can create the beauty around me, he can create solutions to problems.
—Patricia Duckworth associate executive minister American Baptist Churches of the Northwest, Great Falls, Montana
The Sound of Music
God created two special gifts— laughter and music.
It’s been shown that laughter has positive effects on the immune and cardiovascular systems. People who laugh readily get well quicker. So I seek laughter any way I can find it. Laughing at myself is one of the best things I do.
Music has the capacity to go straight through multiple emotional levels and sail right past my defenses. Music massages me at the deepest level. When I’m hurting, sometimes music is the only thing that reaches me, and it reaches me fast. I have no explanation for this except God has ordained it to be so.
Reconciliation brings me joy. I try not to get into situations where I have conflict or enemies, but everybody on the face of the earth does. There is a feeling that comes when you’ve made your enemy your friend that is unlike anything else.
Doing something creative brings joy to me. I’m sometimes mad at God that he’s asked me to be a writer, because it’s such hard work. But when I start with a blank sheet of paper and later see what I’ve written, that brings joy to me. It’s the same as mowing my lawn or roto-tilling the garden. There’s something about bringing order out of disorder, bringing something out of nothing, accomplishing something worthwhile or beautiful, that at the end of the day brings joy.
Successfully getting rid of things that sabotage my joy brings me joy. When I’m upset about something, and then I’m able to jettison that stuff out of my life, I feel good. I can take a breath of fresh air.
—Richard Swenson author of Margin and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School
Joy in the Morning
How I start a day can refresh me. I don’t like to start in a hurry. I get up a couple hours before any appointments to spend time with the Lord in prayer and meditation. I organize the day in my mind. I remind myself I was made in the image of God. Being quiet, doing nothing, is quite renewing. Then I go out and give each day the best I have. At the end of the day, I turn it loose, go to bed, and sleep.
Being in God’s presence is a tremendous source of joy to me. I’ve learned you can shout not only with your voice but with your feet and with your mind. I know that through him I can make a difference.
Since 1992 I have met once a month with other pastors for prayer early in the morning. We don’t talk about pastoral responsibilities, problems we’re having, or anything denominational. We just get together in the presence of the Lord on our knees before him in prayer and worship. That is the zenith of refreshment.
Driving in the country relaxes me. I ride in a leisurely way up to Dutch country, which is farmland, to see the open space and the Amish. I was raised around the water, and any time I can I get away to sit and watch the water.
Friday night is reserved for family. I spend time with them free of pressures, going to dinner, sitting at home, driving the countryside, walking the city.
—William B. Moore, pastor Tenth Memorial Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Easy Rider
My wife and I both love to ride motorcycles, and we love the mountains of Colorado. We both like four-wheeling. I have a four-wheel-drive jeep with huge tires and roll bars, and we’ll go back into the wildest country in Utah you’ve ever seen. We love golf. All these things we do together. She taught me how to fish. (She also taught me how to get hooks out of the top of her head.)
I have to schedule these things in my calendar. If I don’t, I’ll allow the ministry to run roughshod over personal time with her. I schedule things based on what I have found to be typically low times in my schedule.
One never-ending source of joy in my life is my grandkids. The other day my little grandson was sitting in the front of my son’s bus. He opened up the cell phone, started pushing buttons and saying, “Grappaw, Grappaw.” When they told me that, joy flooded me. I cried and laughed.
What I do most is speak in public schools. I don’t know of anything that gets me out of the dumps like speaking in a public school and having kids come up crying, throwing their arms around me, telling me how much that assembly meant to them. I walk out of there floating inches off the ground. I don’t have to speak in schools; there’s no money in it. I do it for the joy. I love it.
—Dave Roever evangelist Fort Worth, Texas
Always Fishing
I find joy in staying after men who need the Lord. I pick some tough targets. I pray for them, spend time with them, share my life with them, and then watch them come to Christ. Nothing pumps my tire like snatching someone from death to life.
I meet a man on his turf. I go to his business office or out to lunch wherever he wants to go. The thing that revs me up for preaching is the real-life working-out of the gospel as it changes the lives of men.
I’ve never been good at office hours. I get up early, work until I’ve done as much as I can that day, and go home. Days off—I take them along the way, but I’m not that structured. I find delight in getting the job done. At the same time, I squeeze in time for family and folks in church I want to spend time with socially.
I play golf. I will take a ride to Yosemite or hang out at Monterey and watch the water. When I think about the God who made all that, joy comes because I know in addition to all of that, he pursued me and brought me to himself, and then he commissioned me to go and get some work done.
—Bufe Karraker, pastor Northwest Church Fresno, California
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
