I’m writing this post on what’s supposed to be my day off. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at my schedule – take the car in to (FINALLY!!!) get the window fixed at 8am, off to ministry at 9am, come back for lunch by 12:30pm, work on next week’s discipleship until 3pm, leader meeting at 4pm, back at the UCSA base for dinner at 7pm, then out with Davie for our one-on-one afterwards.
Thankfully, Christina and I are able to switch our day off this week to Friday. I write it off to the fact that life here is really unpredictable and trying to plan anything can be an exercise in futility.
On the other hand, it also reminds me how closely Christina and I need to guard ourselves from burnout, which is normally the result of overworking yourself. My boss that I served under when I was doing college ministry in Dallas was great at making sure I took my day off and really didn’t darken my office doorstep, meet any students on campus, or anything else that could in any way resemble work. Nevertheless, I’ll never forget one particular day at that church when I was working way too hard (not taking Mally’s advice), and found myself nearly clawing at the walls to get out of that building and never come back again. Knowing that I did, in fact, still love my job, however, I realized that I had really considered myself “more highly than I ought,” as the apostle Paul states in his letter to the Romans and tried to do everything myself. Consequently, I had become so busy that I never allowed myself to rest, mistakenly believing that if I stopped working, everything would fall apart.
It’s really easy to bring that false idea onto the mission field as well. The funny thing about ministry is that there’s always more of it to do, especially here in Jeffreys, where someone could always use more food, or there’s always someone else to go pray for or visit or drive somewhere. And if I don’t feed them or pray for them or visit them or drive them where they need to go, who will?? And so if I’m not careful, I’ll forget exactly who the Savior really is. Nevertheless, I still find myself having to fight for my days off, because even with an incredible leadership team, the “allure” of needing to do everything still rears its ugly head from time to time.
So tomorrow (which is actually about to be today), I’m resting. Christina and I are planning a nice walk on the beach, followed up by one or two movies at home. I might, if I’m feeling really daring, turn my phone off…
Well, let’s not get crazy now.
