Guard your heart

[Jamie]

“Have we dehydrated in the sun while providing pools of refreshment for others?� This seems to be a common ministry pitfall. On multiple occasions now, I have personally experienced the devastation that occurs when a pastor/leader fails or forgets to quench his own thirst, to take care of his own soul, to tend his own heart. They get so busy meeting others’ needs that they fail to take care of their own. The admonition from Proverbs (4.23) – “Above all else, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life� – seems appropriate here.
Most pastors do not need to be exhorted to care for others’ needs – hopefully this is why they signed up in the first place! Their “bent� is to help others. But – from my experience, at least – it seems they do need abundant reminders, admonition, and even honest questioning to continually nurture a rich, inner life with God. The brutal reality of parish ministry is that if I am doggedly determined to provide for others’ every need, then I will never have time to tend to my own (or my family’s!). Make yourself completely available to everyone and they will wear you out! I continue to be struck by how even Jesus – the Good Shepherd himself! – did not feel compelled to meet every need, but often “withdrew to lonely places and spent the night in prayer,� according to Luke. What a wonderful example of healthy self-care, of quenching his own thirst. And he invites his followers to do the same, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place to get some rest.� (Mk. 6.31) On other occasions, Jesus flatly told people NO (e.g., the man who asked Jesus to arbitrate a dispute over his inheritance). I realize I’m going off on a tangent here, but it’s only because I’ve seen how many casualties occur when a leader gets so busy quenching the thirst of others that he fails to quench his own. So, on that note, I wholeheartedly agree with your following statement that, “Our own quenched thirst is the most sustaining source of strength for serving others.� I just would like to see you focus on this a bit more. As I think about it, of course this is the whole reason for this book – a means of helping pastors remember/relearn to quench their own thirst. Of course I also wish that more pastors actually believed this statement. I think if we did, we would be less prone “to do� and more prone “to be,� to put it crudely. We would see the whole of our ministry flowing from our intimate union with Jesus – “I am the vine and you are the branches…Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.� (John 15)

[corinthpastorbob]

Jamie, I wrestle a bit with how you've expressed the need for "healthy self-care." It strikes me as a bit of eisegesis based on a contemporary cultural value, experience, and observation. As I've been doing a good bit of reading and reflection recently on church history, I find myself not only noticing the blind spots of previous generations but wondering about the blind spots of my own. It's fascinating to me that an entire generation - sometimes multiple generations - can all reinforce one another's blind spots through constant repetition. I'm convinced that one of ours is the quest for self-fulfillment and even self-preservation. Generations that preceded ours, and, to a certain extent, other cultures in the world today, would have found it odd that our highest value is to live as long as we can, as physically healthy as we can, with as much personal happiness as we can. Is that not the consummate American dream?

While I am not suggesting your post buys into that value wholescale, I am suggesting that it is at least as much behind it as Scripture. A generation prior to ours urged each other to "burn out" for the Lord. My parents' missionary theme song was, "So send I you to labor unrewarded, to serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown." World-changers are willing, if the need and God's call is clear, to deny self to whatever degree necessary, even if it means loss of sleep or health or, in some cases (though one must be careful), family. Didn't Jesus teach and model that as well?

I see Jesus withdrawing from and refusing the crowds not so much for "healthy self-care" as for, to borrow a GPS term, "recalculating" (what the GPS does when you miss a turn while traveling) his life through time spent with the Father. I also see his compassion for others, including his disciples.

I do not mean to imply endorsement of asceticism or monasticism. Their blind spot was neglecting the balance and rhythm of life that God also created for us, and the joys and pleasures for which he designed us - food, sex, sleep, recreation, etc. Ultimately, I think you and I would come out at the same place, or very similar, in our actual use and advocacy of a balanced life. I would simply rather frame it as an issue of constantly focusing on recalculating life under the Father's calling and direction than as an issue of self-care.

Bob

[Ragamuffin]

In reading both of the prior posts, I would say you are both right. How is that for diplomacy?

I didn't read Jamie's post as indicative of our self-indulgent culture. Bob, how do you square the idea of "burn out" with streams of living water? Burn out happens when there is scorching dryness - a dynamic we are feeling in NC right now because of a year long drought. Over 10,000 acres burned in a very short time this weekend, driven by the lack of rain and winds. The destruction from burn out is not desirable in either people or landscapes.

I do agree with your concern that the 'quest for quenching' as it were can be an excuse for all kinds of misuse. But then so can the burn out for Jesus idea. I am not so sure that Jesus was recalculating. I have thought of it as recalibrating - the exercise of the spiritual disciplines of solitude and prayer so that He never lost the clear vision of what the Father wanted Him to do. I cannot see that He was burned out for God's plan. Scourged and crucifed yes, but burned out - no.

Neither do I see it in the lives of His immediate followers. When they did act unusually - like Peter in the presence of the Jews or Paul in his treatment of the young John Mark - perhaps that is an indication they were out of sync with His Spirit and in need of recalibration.

Having served under leaders who have burned out, I will say it is never positive. Their actions and reactions are frenetic not faithful. Their treatment of God's people is like a hireling not a shepherd. They use rather than serve. They leave scorched lives in their wake.

I appreciate the picture presented in the text of both dryness and flooding. The inner disposition created by a consistent communion with the Good Shepherd is akin to the preparation real shepherds must make for rain - creating dams and channels and temporary reservoirs - no matter what comes they are prepared. So must we be.

I also appreciated that the reservoirs are temporary and not self-constructed cisterns that will grow stale over time. There is an expectation here that the Living Water will flow against all natural odds. The personal applications for me are do I believe it is available and am I ready to receive it both to quench my own thirst and serve as a wellspring for others?