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, ...