| When the going gets
tough...(in
spite of all the fridge magnets you've read, the completion of this thought is
NOT 'the tough eat chocolate!') Actually, when the going gets tough, it's time to
realign your focus. Where are you going? Why? And, ultimately, it's
time to bear down and keep going!
When the
demands of the ministry begin to "fray my edges" so to speak, it's
time to realign my focus. Where am I
going? Sometimes, instead of having a clear destination, I inadvertently
step onto the gerbil wheel of busyness. To be sure, to be in ministry is to be
busy. But a periodic realignment is necessary in order to guard against a
busyness that is driven by a response to
the needs and expectations of people, as opposed to a healthy response to
the things that the Lord has set my hands to do. In theory, that seems clear
enough. In practice, it takes a continual discerning that can all too easily be
derailed.
For example,
ministry is simply serving people on behalf of the heart of the Father, the
mind of Christ, in the power of the Spirit. The key word there is people. It is
all too easy to make the subtle slip from being motivated by God to being motivated by peoples' expectations
and desires. This is especially so for those of us who love people. When I
have made the slip, it's all too easy to tell, because that's when my edges
begin to fray! It's time to reassess the path I'm on--where am I going? The
truth is that when I stay yoked to Jesus, He keeps me going on the path that
presses forward toward the mark of the prize of my high calling in Christ
Jesus! However, when I get drawn aside by any number of
"responsibilities" I end up going in circles. To be sure, to a casual
observer, it all looks like ministry. The difference is whether I'm moving
forward with my God assignment or going in circles doing good stuff.
When the
going gets tough...it's time to realign your focus. The next question is,
"Why?" Why am I doing what I'm doing. If I really dig into my
motives, I will find that somewhere I slipped from responding to God to
responding to people. Once, several years ago when I seemed to be caught
between a rock and a hard place, the Lord said to me, "Who called you?" Strangely enough, we always
assume that God asks us to do the impossible and that people are more
reasonable. That's a faulty assumption on two counts. One is that God does not
ask us to do the impossible--he asks us to respond to Him in obedience and then
watch HIM do the impossible. Secondly, people are all too often unreasonable in
their expectations!
And, lastly,
when the going gets tough, it's time to bear down and keep going! Whenever I
feel myself struggling with motivation to keep going, I realize it's because
I've been using too much mental and emotional energy with the "going in
circles" stuff. Nobody likes to go in circles. We all like to progress and
move forward. The very process of moving forward energizes and motivates to
keep on. Going in circles does just the opposite--it saps your strength and
destroys your motivation to keep on.
What about
you? Is there a gerbil wheel syndrome in any area of your life that causes you
to be going in circles instead of moving forward? Know this, it is NEVER God's
perfect will for you to be spinning a gerbil's wheel. So, if you have one (or
more), it isn't God that put you there. Neither it is His will that you just
try harder, thereby going faster and faster...in circles.
If you will
honestly ask yourself these realignment questions, and just as honestly answer
them...you will be able to see what it would take to step off the wheel.
However, the longer you have traveled a particular path, the more smoothly worn
it is. And automatic pilot is so much easier--but only momentarily. Meanwhile
your edges fray and fray until you hardly recognize yourself. As long as you try to please any master
except Christ, (whether that be one of your dearest loved ones or even
yourself) you will find yourself going in circles and ultimately resentful of
everything and everyone.
Being yoked
to Christ is not a religious command intended to keep you from having a
life--IT IS A DIVINE INVITATION INTENDED TO FREE YOU FROM THE GERBIL WHEEL
SYNDROME! Most people understand "being yoked to Christ" as being
expected to be perfect. Truly, being yoked to Christ is an opportunity to allow
the Holy Spirit to put your feet on the path that was fore-ordained for your
particular life before the foundation of the world. It's an opportunity to walk
tall and to be free of living in the soul-draining circumstances that fallen
man seems to inadvertently surround himself with. Shockingly, the beginning of
the change that we long for MUST come within ourselves. As long as you wait for
God to change your circumstances, you will wonder why He doesn't seem to move
on your behalf. When you come to the place where you are willing to allow him
to be LORD of both your perspectives and your responses, you will find him to
be powerfully present to convict and realign, thereby ultimately bringing about
the changes you desire.
When the
going gets tough...it's time to realign your focus. Has your focus been on the
circumstances--the gerbil wheel? Until we get our realignment, even if the Lord
caused your gerbil wheel to break--you would just inadvertently step onto another
of the enemy's making. But realignment takes courage--courage to hear the truth
and then to switch off automatic pilot. Oddly enough, when God was preparing
Joshua to lead His people into the Promised Land, He told him repeatedly to "be strong and of good courage!" It takes courage to leave the familiarity of
the gerbil wheel (the wilderness) and then to step into the Jordan, knowing
that the Promised Land is on the other side!
|
