Today’s Readings: Psalm 18:1-24; Exodus 14:21-31; Luke 13:31-35; Romans 13:1-7; Psalm 18:25-50
Growing up, I remember being really confused about one aspect of church life – I remember being confused about why families of ministers often had such difficult times. I couldn’t understand why Preacher’s Kids (PKs), in particular, had such a rough go of things. And then I became a minister and learned why that was. You see the nature of a minister’s life is that things spontaneously come up all the time. You might be sitting down to dinner, for instance, when the phone rings and it’s a parishioner in crisis. By the time you hang up the phone an hour later, your food is cold and the rest of the family has long since finished their dinners. Or you might have planned the vacation of a lifetime and – just as you’re walking out the front door - you get a phone call learning of someone’s death and suddenly your once-in-a-lifetime vacation is replaced by the funeral. While these occurrences are unavoidable in the day-to-day life of a minister, you can see the challenges that arise in the life of a minister’s family! What makes things even more challenging is that not all of the interruptions are as unavoidable as the two examples I just gave you – for the examples I gave you are no-brainers: they are emergencies that need immediate attention. Sometime, you have folks come to you with things they THINK are emergencies and expect you to drop everything for them at a moment’s notice. The challenge for a minister, then, is this: “How do I sort through the requests and respond in a timely fashion when the situation requires it, and when do I put some things on the backburner in order to live a healthy, well-rounded life?” Thankfully, I haven’t been left to my own devices to answer that question; I have a great teacher to help me figure out how to deal with the constant demands that life throws my way. That teacher? Jesus. I could give you dozens and dozens of examples of how Jesus was able to sort through demands and prioritize things, but a good example of this is found in today’s reading from Luke. In that passage Jesus was focused on the truly important matters at hand (i.e. “clearing out the demons and healing the sick”) when a potential interruption presented itself from left field. How did Jesus handle the situation? Did he immediately drop everything and frantically respond to the “emergency” in front of his face? No. Jesus had such a clear sense of priority that he intuitively knew what needed his attention first, and he stayed where he was most needed. His example encourages me to do the same thing: have a clear sense of what’s most important, and then live my life according to that sense of priority. Today would be a great time for you to stop and examine your own life. Do you run around in a constant state of chaos – trying to meet each and every request made of you, or is your life governed by a sense of priority that helps you sort through the demands and deal with them in a purposeful way? The increased sense of clarity you would gain from such an exercise might not only make your life more manageable – it might make your life more meaningful as well. Til next time…
Growing up, I remember being really confused about one aspect of church life – I remember being confused about why families of ministers often had such difficult times. I couldn’t understand why Preacher’s Kids (PKs), in particular, had such a rough go of things. And then I became a minister and learned why that was. You see the nature of a minister’s life is that things spontaneously come up all the time. You might be sitting down to dinner, for instance, when the phone rings and it’s a parishioner in crisis. By the time you hang up the phone an hour later, your food is cold and the rest of the family has long since finished their dinners. Or you might have planned the vacation of a lifetime and – just as you’re walking out the front door - you get a phone call learning of someone’s death and suddenly your once-in-a-lifetime vacation is replaced by the funeral. While these occurrences are unavoidable in the day-to-day life of a minister, you can see the challenges that arise in the life of a minister’s family! What makes things even more challenging is that not all of the interruptions are as unavoidable as the two examples I just gave you – for the examples I gave you are no-brainers: they are emergencies that need immediate attention. Sometime, you have folks come to you with things they THINK are emergencies and expect you to drop everything for them at a moment’s notice. The challenge for a minister, then, is this: “How do I sort through the requests and respond in a timely fashion when the situation requires it, and when do I put some things on the backburner in order to live a healthy, well-rounded life?” Thankfully, I haven’t been left to my own devices to answer that question; I have a great teacher to help me figure out how to deal with the constant demands that life throws my way. That teacher? Jesus. I could give you dozens and dozens of examples of how Jesus was able to sort through demands and prioritize things, but a good example of this is found in today’s reading from Luke. In that passage Jesus was focused on the truly important matters at hand (i.e. “clearing out the demons and healing the sick”) when a potential interruption presented itself from left field. How did Jesus handle the situation? Did he immediately drop everything and frantically respond to the “emergency” in front of his face? No. Jesus had such a clear sense of priority that he intuitively knew what needed his attention first, and he stayed where he was most needed. His example encourages me to do the same thing: have a clear sense of what’s most important, and then live my life according to that sense of priority. Today would be a great time for you to stop and examine your own life. Do you run around in a constant state of chaos – trying to meet each and every request made of you, or is your life governed by a sense of priority that helps you sort through the demands and deal with them in a purposeful way? The increased sense of clarity you would gain from such an exercise might not only make your life more manageable – it might make your life more meaningful as well. Til next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment