Do not grow weary.....

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" - Galatians 6:9

This verse came up on my facebook wall at the weekend and I can't get it out of my head. It came up in the middle of a number of days that have been emotionally draining, both personally and in work. Where I've tried to escape in the last few days, my escaping has been interrupted by things that I wouldn't expect to happen on any normal day. Sometimes the hits just keep on coming. 

So where does that verse fit into this? It's a verse that I and others have used in the past to urge ourselves and one another on - what you are doing is good, keep on going, look at the difference you're making. It's a verse that has been used to encourage people to get through the barrier, to make a way through the wall of tiredness that makes the task ahead seem impossible. 

But it's also a verse that could just tip you over the edge. 

The voices that cry out in my Baptist Minister circles at the moment are ones that take this verse and use it as a reason to keep going, but are at that point of tipping over the edge. The reality of ministerial burnout, even for those who always appear strong and to have it together, is a concept that a number are having to wrestle with at the moment. The voices are crying out "I can't do this anymore", "I've had enough", "the mountain is too big to climb". Do not become weary of doing good has become a reason to not stop, not take holidays, not take rest days, to feed everyone except themselves. The pressure from congregations who want the ministers to have all the answers to questions they are not experts in answering is huge. 

Perhaps we need to pause for a minute and turn this verse on its head. Perhaps we need to let go of the need to focus on the 'do good' and focus on the 'do not become weary'. In churches led by action and programme and never ever stopping ever, perhaps we have come to our limit. 

Galatians 6 says not only verse 9, but also 'watch yourselves', 'carry one another's burdens', 'test your own actions', '[don't] compare yourselves to others'..... 

If we are not to grow weary, then it makes sense that we keep an eye on ourselves and one another, it makes sense that we check ourselves for weariness and do something about it, it makes sense that we don't compare ourselves to others, because it only leads to the myth that we're not good enough. I have no idea how some ministers do what they do, but that's them, and I am me. 

Do not grow weary in doing good calls us away from a life of self-centred laziness, but it doesn't call us to a life of exhaustion. God created sabbath. God put sabbath smack bang in the middle of the 10 commandments. God stopped the world that was full of humans trying to be saviours when the temple curtain tore in two.

Do not grow weary in doing good calls us to rest, it calls us to refill, it calls us to look ahead with a pause to resource ourselves for the way ahead. It calls us to remember that we are here to restore, but that we can't do that if we're lying on the floor and are not able to even crawl ahead. 

Do not grow weary in doing good. 

Do not grow weary, for as you take the path ahead which will bring much good, the possibility for burnout is real. 

Take care of yourselves, take care of your leaders, and make space for rest. That will enable the good to happen. 

Do not grow weary, for God is with us. Do not grow weary, for God calls us in his way. Do not grow weary, for the path ahead is not meant to be walked alone. Do not grow weary, because even though the future is difficult to see, the promise is that the future will be good. 

Do not grow weary. God gives you rest.

Pulling up the rug.....

Some of you might not relate to this because you are of the category of 'super-cleaner' - you always move your furniture and your rugs when you clean so the concept of what I am going to say will be beyond your comprehension, but bear with me..... 

For those of you who do not do that, think about that day you decide to do a more thorough clean than normal and you decide that your rug in your living room needs a big clean and the floor underneath as a result. You remove your coffee table from the rug - it's heavy because of all the stuff inside, so you remove all of the stuff too and pile it up somewhere to be replaced later. As you do so you remember the time you took that photo, the memory of the day you started the jigsaw that sits on top, but never quite got finished. You pick up that book you meant to read and put it on top of the one you've read 500 times. You move the pile of letters that needs filing to another 'to be filed' pile and you remove all the little bits and pieces that are handy to have lying about.....

And finally you get to the rug. You roll it up and discover things you'd put there to deal with later. The letter from an ex that you couldn't bear to throw away at the time. The card that tried to fix a friendship but you couldn't bear to read at the time. Pages from your old journal where you write in detail of the impossibly difficult time you had find their way into your hands and you remember why you hid them because to deal with them at any time would be painful and difficult. In amongst the mess you find an article that you'd kept because it had inspired you to dream big dreams in the past, but you weren't ready to dream quite so big just then. There was hope, but the hope got hidden under the everyday activities of life. 

And of course there is dirt, and there is dust, and all those things that got brushed under the rug you didn't know were there, the broken bits of that mug you dropped on the floor that didn't get hoovered up and there is a lot of cleaning to do..... 

You sit and you look at the mess, the piles around you, and you have a cup of coffee and you sit and you wait, but it doesn't move. If the mess is going to cleaned up, if the ghosts of the past are to be dealt with, if the dreams we once had are to be realised, someone has to do something about it.... 

The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown seems to have created an atmosphere that has shined a spotlight on what is under that rug. In our churches, in our organisations, in our government, in our lives, the things that have been brushed under the rug to be dealt with later or simply ignored because they are too difficult to deal with are being revealed, entangled in the mess we didn't even know was there. As all the activities and busyness of everyday life has been stripped away, what has been hidden beneath the rug has gained a life of its own and is really raising it's head. 

It's led us into all sorts of difference spaces - the blame headspace (it's not my mess), the 'someone else will clear up after me' headspace (I mean it's their job isn't it?), the apathetic headspace (it's not my job definitely and I'm just going to carry on the way I've always carried on), the 'let's unroll that rug again and cover it all up' headspace, the 'let someone else do it and we'll kick them while they do it' headspace ...... but none of that deals with the mess. 

Perhaps this is the time to face up to the mess, the broken bits, the past and do some mending, do some clearing out, do some dealing with, do some healing and when we've done all that, begin to dream those dreams again...... lay down the rug on a clean floor, place on top a new coffee table and step tentatively into a more pleasant, less busy, better future. It might be painful, it might tear us apart, we might ache because the sticky mess in the middle of the floor that we can't identify involves more elbow grease than we ever knew we had..... but something needs to be done, because as the brokenness is highlighted, the mending must begin, the mess under the rug we've been ignoring must be faced before it becomes even greater. 

Moving forward doesn't happen without a new start, forgetting the past doesn't happen if we are going to rediscover it again, put off the old, put on the new..... for that is the way in which we are taught. 

"....take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you" - Ephesians 4:24ish (the Message)


image from here https://images.app.goo.gl/rAF55Zcregi3cqCW9

Are we nearly there yet?

Those long journeys in the back of the car surrounded by books and quizzes and things to spot, the anticipation that one day we could get out of this metal box. The questions begin. 

The delayed train stops in the middle of nowhere, you look out the window and the driver armed with a torch and his bag that should have already been by his front door at home walks to the other end of the train to turn round because the way ahead is blocked. The frustration sets in. 

The top of the mountain seems clear ahead but on arrival at the top the next climb ahead shows the top is much further away and the climb continues. The knees hurt, the legs ache, the end moves beyond the line of sight. 

The empty space sits waiting to be filled with the sound of singing and family, the smells of eating and the beauty of Christ centred community. The regulations and barriers are erected and all that was asked for is shifted to another virtual place. 

At the beginning of lockdown the whole Christian world was quoting Isaiah 26:20. I wrote a blog on it before it became THE verse. The expectation of the numbers pointed to a date 26 days away or 26th April or 2nd June or some sort of mathematical operation to the date of today that would mean lockdown would magically disappear. 

But it doesn’t work like that. The words ‘are we nearly there yet?’ don’t get us any closer. Manipulating the numbers doesn’t bring the magic miracles the manipulator would like. Just because we’re told we can meet for worship it doesn’t mean we can worship in a way that we actually want to......More than 100 days later that instruction from Isaiah 26:20 is still more than relevant - look at the second half of the verse. 

“Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by”

The danger isn’t over, in fact it’s still very much here. It doesn’t say hide until the pubs open or hide until you feel like it, it says hide until it’s gone...... take it slowly, don’t rush, pause for a while. The open door will come.....

In the meanwhile, it's time to discover and to use our imagination, look ahead, look beyond, because there are opportunities ahead we have never dreamed of before.