The reason we are called to lay up treasures in heaven is because we are his treasure. When you are confident you are the Father's treasured possession, you are also confident that his loving care will continue forever. Building warehouses is a waste of time and space. His gifts to you become things you want to give back to him in gratitude. Then he gives you even more.
The kingdom is God's....Owners are the ones who do all the worrying; stewards simply listen to the owner's desires and work to implement them. Owners are repsonsible for the outcome; stewards strive to be faithful.
The devil's strategy is to get us problem-centred rather than Christ-centred...
It is so easy to write daily our own little book From Praise to Prison or How to cultivate ministry paranoia. I have found it in myself, seen it in others and now in Fred. Sure we may have failed him in more ways than we can count, but let's not fail him now by not drawing him back to a spirit of praise...
The pattern is this: The Father genuinely cares about the daily needs of His children, and he is constantly caring for us, but he wants this to point us to something better. If we don’t find our life and strength in Jesus Christ, we will go from one worry to the next.
Remember that God’s stories in Scripture are progressive – they keep getting better. It is as if we are goven small doses of reality when we are very young and cannot grasp God’s sophisticated love and care. When we are older and have witnessed more of God’s ways, we are prepared to hear it all. When we are young He gives us manna; when we are old He gives us his life. We get him.
When trouble is on the horizon, we already feel alone. We feel like we have to rely on ourselves. We might know what God says but it doesn’t seem relevant to the emerging crisis We have a sense that the kingdom is for the future but our needs and worries are in the present. In other words, the Evil One doesn’t have to do much more than say, “Yes you are right to think that you have to hoard to protect your own kingdom.”
Basically, I am convinced that men who do not make praying their first priority in life and ministry should not preach or pastor. As preachers they will be confusing models of a Christian man, and as shepherds they will not show the willingness to die for the sheep. Their spirit will inevitably drift in the wrong direction...
I do not, of course, think of prayer as retirement from the battle to the isolation of a remote study, but the vertical aspect of vigorous shepherding...
Usually when our praying is weak so is our shepherding spirit; we have more in common with the hireling than the Shepherd who died for His sheep...
Pray confidently without any doubt that the Spirit will empower you.
If you are looking to plumb the depths of worry, you can find it in your mixed allegiances. You trust God for some things and not others. You trust him for heaven but not earth.Running Scared, p.109
In his 1941 essay “The Wound and the Bow,” the literary critic Edmund Wilson writes of the Sophoclean hero Philoctetes, whose suppurating, never-healing snakebite wound on his foot is linked to a gift for unerring accuracy with his bow and arrow—his “malodorous disease” is inseparable from his “superhuman art” for marksmanship. I have always been drawn to this parable: in it lies, as the writer Jeanette Winterson has put it, “the nearness of the wound to the gift,” the insight that in weakness and shamefulness is also the potential for transcendence, heroism, or redemption. My anxiety remains an unhealed wound that, at times, holds me back and fills me with shame—but it may also be, at the same time, a source of strength and a bestower of certain blessings.
James Emery White, LeadershipYour list may be different, but here is mine:1. A regular day off. I take a day off every week, and I'm really off. It's the last part that matters. It's so easy to let ministry tasks, emails, phone calls, text messages, and work demands weave themselves into every nook and cranny of every day. It takes self-discipline and clear intent to actually have a day off. For me, it's Friday, so that I can unwind before our weekend service schedule begins.Once a month, I also go on a spiritual retreat in the mountains. I drive away from the office on a Thursday afternoon, stay overnight at a little bed and breakfast, and come back the next afternoon. The time is spent in a place that is renewing, a manner that is renewing, and with a God who is renewing.2. An annual study break. I take an annual study break of four to six weeks, where I physically relocate. This isn't vacation, but a time of intentional spiritual and emotional renewal for the tasks at hand. Those who teach and lead have to pour out instruction and guidance to others, and need to have annual times not just to rest, but to replenish themselves. This is a time to separate myself from the emotional wear and tear but still invest myself in issues related to ministry.When I'm on study break, I read widely, travel broadly, visit other churches intentionally, map out another year of teaching strategically, and tackle large leadership challenges diligently. I've taken a summer study break of some kind for nearly 20 years, and it's one of the reasons why I'm still thriving in ministry today. Like an athlete that goes through a grueling season, you have to stop, give your emotions time to heal, all in order to enter a new season.3. Clear boundaries regarding giftedness. As a pastor, you teach people about spiritual gtifts, and the importance of making that gift their area of primary investment. I've had to learn to apply this teaching to myself. There will always be times where you have to serve as needed, but staying primarily within your gift mix is preventative medicine against burn-out, because nothing will drain you faster than operating outside of your giftedness.I do not rank very high with the spiritual gift of mercy, not to mention how that plays itself out in, say, extended pastoral counseling. If I had to invest in that area with ongoing, regular blocks of time, it would wipe me out. I've had to learn to be very up front with folks about my areas of giftedness, and how those gifts are supposed to operate in the mix with other people's gifts in the body. Because what happens in a church, even one where spiritual gifts are taught and celebrated, is that the pastor is still expected to have them all—and to operate in them all. The danger is that you'll let yourself try.4. Emotionally replenishing experiences. I've had to learn to intentionally pursue emotionally replenishing experiences. When you hurt, if you don't find something God-honoring to fill your tanks with, you'll find something that isn't God-honoring. Or at the very least, you'll be vulnerable to something that isn't. I am convinced this is why so many pastors struggle with pornography—it offers a quick temporary emotional lift.To prevent that, I've had to learn to do things that flow deep emotional joy into my life. For some folks it's boating, or golf, or gardening. For me, it's travel, pleasure reading, time alone with family, and enjoying anything outdoors—particularly the mountains.5. Real time with God. The most strategic investment is time with God. But not just any time with God—I must have time with God that touches me at a heart and soul level. Every day, I seek to spend some time pouring out my heart, and in turn, receiving his. Few people had the emotional ups and downs of David, and if you read the Psalms carefully, you see that he poured out his emotions to God in a disarmingly candid way. Learning to pray like David has been healthy for me.Ministry can be hazardous to your soul. Since we're always doing spiritual things, it is easy to substitute doing ministry with true communion with God. Plus, so many people assume we're spiritual, it is tempting to believe that and let the estimation of others be the standard by which we judge the state of our souls. From this, there can be enormous levels of self-deception in regard to our spirituality. Coupled with the emotional drain of our vocational lives, we are terribly vulnerable.
The Lesson:“be not dismayed by soul-trouble.” “Cast the burden of the present, along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the Lord, who forsaketh not his saint. Live by the day–ay, by the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings. Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement….Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world….Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet, but it is all provided for by our covenant Head….Come fair or come foul…be it ours, when we cannot see the face of our God, to trust under the shadow of his wings.”
Hopeful: My brother, said he, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror, and amazement hast thou already gone through; and art thou now nothing but fears! Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art. Also this giant hath wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth, and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience. Remember how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain nor cage, nor yet of bloody death: wherefore let us (at least to avoid the shame that it becomes not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as well as we can.
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon-door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. They then thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction.
...CH Spurgeon stated, "Our anxiety does not empty today of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths." A person cannot allow fear to master him and become the master of his strengths at the same time. It just doesn't happen.
When shall we come and appear before God? We pray when we see the emptiness of all things under heaven We see that in God alone their is rest and satisfaction for the soul. "The widow that is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and ask God for help". (!TM.5:5)...to pry rightly you must make God your hope, stay and all. Right prayer sees nothing substantial or worth being concerned about except God. And that, as I said before, it does in a sincere, sensible and affectionate way.
You especially noted that after all these years of ministry, you don't know of anyone becoming a Christian through your work. Looking back over my own life and ministry, I would say that one of my greatest weaknesses has also been trying to figure things out on my own without taking the time to be alone with God and opening myself to what He wants to teach me.
What I would stress then is that a man of vision gets his vision only in and through prayer. Only prayer with a goal of glorifying God at any cost can give God's vision to a man or a woman. I covet this for myself - and for you.
I would encourage you to remember that such a desire for vision is already a gift of the Lord, and what He has begun to give He wants to increase. Hindrances there are. One of these happens to be reservations in our hearts about the nature and character of His will for our lives. We secretly suspect that His will might be more demanding, more crucifying of our desires, than we can handle. But daily surrender to His will as you pray, and it will bring a freedom from anxiety that you cannot believe.
But whatever grace Abraham has is elusive for most of us. Abraham had a spiritual vision that allowed him to see beyond the eleventh hour, but the rest of us live with reading glasses that exaggerate what is in front of us and blur everything beyond three feet.
