Andrew and I both woke up this morning very stressed. We are both in deadline-driven work, with other requirements and commitments thrown in. Add that to being part of a non-profit ministry that is perpetually understaffed, you can feel like the whole world is riding on your shoulders.
The world is heavy.
Throughout the past six years of my work in a cross-cultural setting, the waves of stress have ebbed and flowed. I learned the hard way (through stress-related illness) early on, that God is not asking me to carry the whole world on my shoulders. That's His job. Yet, so often, I forget.
I forget when the news becomes a rapid-fire sequence of disasters, acts of violence and war updates that we need to report on without delay. I forget when I am happily flooded with story after story of God's redeeming work in broken lives, broken relationships and broken communities. I want to tell those stories RIGHT NOW, because I'm excited, and I want the whole world to know how great and wonderful is our God. And maybe I'm wanting to erase the bad taste of all those bad stories, too.
But there are only so many hours in a day.
I've lamented frequently that I even have to sleep. Or cook. Or clean. Why did God make it just a 24-hour day? Why not 36 or 48? Couldn't He send a housekeeper and cook and personal assistant to run my errands so I can keep on working?
I also pray that God would send more workers into the harvest to labor alongside me in this really exciting ministry of communications. And He is answering. People are turning up, ready and willing to help. It's great. And it's more encouraging to me than I can say. But we're still not there. There are more stories to tell than people to tell them, more deadlines to meet than hours in the day. More projects that need worked on. More meetings to be had. More proposals that need written. More budgets to be drawn up. More trips than space between them. More desktop to be cleared off, more emails to be answered and archived. More, more, more...
It's not just missionary life. It's simply life in the Western world, whether or not you're a missionary. If you're a stay-at-home mom, or a mom who balances child care with working outside the home; a husband working during the day and trying to finish a degree at night; or a retiree who suspects you're busier than when you had a full-time job; or a single woman working two jobs to make ends meet, to give just a few examples, chances are you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's like this globally, now, I don't know.
Margins. As I texted a bit with my dad (retired Nazarene pastor) this morning, he reminded me of the principle of blocking out "margins" in one's life. This is the white area around the text in a book or document that gives your eyes space to "breathe." We need this in our lives, too: blocks of time in our daily schedule or weekly calendar when we have space in which we can just take a breath. Say a prayer. Think. Reflect. Be at peace.
I haven't had that for a while. Not everything in my calendar has been a demand. Sometimes it's been good things, like dinners with friends, or a weekly Bible study, or a day trip to explore some new area of where we live.
But it still hasn't left me any breathing room. Thus, we wake up to a beautifully sunny day arced over by a cobalt sky and just simply feel grumpy and irritable. What a waste of a rare sunny day in England.
Again, God is telling me that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He's not asking me to kill myself in His work. In fact, there is a major theme in the Bible of entering into God's rest. I dearly need that promise of His rest right now. I don't think He means sleeping in late or getting a solid 9-hour night of uninterrupted sleep (although I would happily accept either of those blessings). I think He means peacefulness, trust in Him in the midst of a storm, knowing that in the end it's all up to Him, not me.
I hope we can all enter into His rest today as we allow Him to help us draw out boundaries, or margins, in our lives and in our service to Him and others.
And if you want to pray for us (for Andrew's balancing of research, serving the college, preaching, etc., for more people to join me in the work), we won't turn that down, either.
The world is heavy.
Throughout the past six years of my work in a cross-cultural setting, the waves of stress have ebbed and flowed. I learned the hard way (through stress-related illness) early on, that God is not asking me to carry the whole world on my shoulders. That's His job. Yet, so often, I forget.
I forget when the news becomes a rapid-fire sequence of disasters, acts of violence and war updates that we need to report on without delay. I forget when I am happily flooded with story after story of God's redeeming work in broken lives, broken relationships and broken communities. I want to tell those stories RIGHT NOW, because I'm excited, and I want the whole world to know how great and wonderful is our God. And maybe I'm wanting to erase the bad taste of all those bad stories, too.
But there are only so many hours in a day.
I've lamented frequently that I even have to sleep. Or cook. Or clean. Why did God make it just a 24-hour day? Why not 36 or 48? Couldn't He send a housekeeper and cook and personal assistant to run my errands so I can keep on working?
I also pray that God would send more workers into the harvest to labor alongside me in this really exciting ministry of communications. And He is answering. People are turning up, ready and willing to help. It's great. And it's more encouraging to me than I can say. But we're still not there. There are more stories to tell than people to tell them, more deadlines to meet than hours in the day. More projects that need worked on. More meetings to be had. More proposals that need written. More budgets to be drawn up. More trips than space between them. More desktop to be cleared off, more emails to be answered and archived. More, more, more...
It's not just missionary life. It's simply life in the Western world, whether or not you're a missionary. If you're a stay-at-home mom, or a mom who balances child care with working outside the home; a husband working during the day and trying to finish a degree at night; or a retiree who suspects you're busier than when you had a full-time job; or a single woman working two jobs to make ends meet, to give just a few examples, chances are you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's like this globally, now, I don't know.
Margins. As I texted a bit with my dad (retired Nazarene pastor) this morning, he reminded me of the principle of blocking out "margins" in one's life. This is the white area around the text in a book or document that gives your eyes space to "breathe." We need this in our lives, too: blocks of time in our daily schedule or weekly calendar when we have space in which we can just take a breath. Say a prayer. Think. Reflect. Be at peace.
I haven't had that for a while. Not everything in my calendar has been a demand. Sometimes it's been good things, like dinners with friends, or a weekly Bible study, or a day trip to explore some new area of where we live.
But it still hasn't left me any breathing room. Thus, we wake up to a beautifully sunny day arced over by a cobalt sky and just simply feel grumpy and irritable. What a waste of a rare sunny day in England.
Again, God is telling me that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He's not asking me to kill myself in His work. In fact, there is a major theme in the Bible of entering into God's rest. I dearly need that promise of His rest right now. I don't think He means sleeping in late or getting a solid 9-hour night of uninterrupted sleep (although I would happily accept either of those blessings). I think He means peacefulness, trust in Him in the midst of a storm, knowing that in the end it's all up to Him, not me.
I hope we can all enter into His rest today as we allow Him to help us draw out boundaries, or margins, in our lives and in our service to Him and others.
And if you want to pray for us (for Andrew's balancing of research, serving the college, preaching, etc., for more people to join me in the work), we won't turn that down, either.
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