{"id":4601,"date":"2019-02-28T11:15:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T17:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nafwb.org\/?p=4601"},"modified":"2019-02-28T11:15:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T17:15:13","slug":"thoreauly-equipped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/thoreauly-equipped\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoreauly Equipped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Robert J. Morgan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere, someone is sitting down, glancing at this page and reading these words in a state of utter exhaustion.\u00a0 Perhaps you\u2019re a pastor or you work on a church staff.\u00a0 Perhaps a deacon, trustee or children\u2019s worker.\u00a0 Perhaps a parent, a caregiver or a community volunteer.<\/p>\n<p>To that person, I\u2019d like to share a word of personal testimony.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Five Hard Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I write this, I\u2019m recovering from a prolonged period of habitual fatigue that began five years ago when several events converged in my life.\u00a0 My wife\u2019s multiple sclerosis worsened, requiring all kinds of adjustments in our schedule and lifestyle.\u00a0 My daughter\u2019s waywardness took a sharp left turn, causing us days and nights of anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>We opened a new wing of our church, leading to accelerated growth and heavier demands.\u00a0 My writing ministry took off full force, doubling my workload and presenting me with new sets of deadlines every month.\u00a0 During this time, I passed the half-century mark and tried to ignore the silent grumblings of an aging body.<\/p>\n<p>In the middle of it all, my dear mother passed away.\u00a0 The responsibility for her mountain home and acreage fell on my shoulders, and my sister and I opened it as a bed and breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>Being a workaholic, I pressed right on, working seven days a week and putting in 10 to 15 hour days.\u00a0 It all caught up to me when three book deadlines came due the same day!\u00a0 To make matters worse, we were launching a major campaign at church while coping with the resignations of two staff members.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thoreau in France<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Realizing I was spent, I took some time off\u2014a week in the mountains followed by time with a friend bumming around France.\u00a0 I took two books with me\u2014the Bible and Henry David Thoreau\u2019s <em>Walden. <\/em>Perhaps on another occasion, I\u2019ll tell how the Bible spoke to me.\u00a0 For now, I want to quote Thoreau a little.\u00a0 See if any of this applies to you\u2026.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East\u2014to know who built them.\u00a0 For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them\u2014who were above such trifling.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Worst of all (is) when you are a slave-driver of yourself.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>He has no time to be anything but a machine.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Our life is frittered away by detail.\u00a0 An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest.\u00a0 Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!\u00a0 I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred\u2026.\u00a0 Keep your accounts on your thumbnail.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Simplify, simplify.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Realignment Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I read those words, I thought about the way my dad used to clean out the springs behind our house in the hills.\u00a0 Those springs supplied our water.\u00a0 When they were well-tended, our water was pure and plentiful.\u00a0 But after he passed away, the springs were neglected and our water supply gradually became muddy and meager.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible says, \u201cAll my springs are in thee\u201d (Psalm 87:7).\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to have living water flowing from our inmost being, we\u2019ve got to tend the springs.\u00a0 So I made some\u2026well, not resolutions as much as realignments.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how I recorded it in my journal:<\/p>\n<p>Realignments:<\/p>\n<p>Seeing that:\u00a0 (1) I\u2019ve faced five years of difficult problems and demanding responsibilities; and (2) that my reserves are drained and my gauges are low; and that (3) I want my remaining years to be more productive for the Lord than all previous ones\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, I want to make some midlife realignments:<\/p>\n<p>1.\u00a0 To reclaim my mornings for study.\u00a0 It\u2019s necessary to recover much more time during my weekday mornings (Monday-Friday) for pure study\u2014to the ministry of the Word and of prayer.\u00a0 This means keeping a \u201cclosed door,\u201d allowing few distractions (especially phone and e-mail), and being available to just an open Bible and notepad, as it were.<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0 To leave my office door open in the afternoons, signaling my availability to the needs of others.<\/p>\n<p>3.\u00a0 To allocate time each day for exercise.<\/p>\n<p>4.\u00a0 To take an extra weeknight (Monday, Tuesday or Thursday) to be at home with my wife, Katrina.<\/p>\n<p>5.\u00a0 To take Saturdays off (more or less).<\/p>\n<p>6.\u00a0 And to reduce all other work as necessary to meet these realignments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Change Now for Tomorrow<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This has meant changes in numerous areas.\u00a0 At church, we\u2019ve adjusted my role so as to turn over the day-by-day administration to someone else.\u00a0 I now devote my time to teaching and preaching, to vision casting, to mentoring a handful of college guys, and to making critical pastoral and evangelistic prospects.\u00a0 And I do little else.<\/p>\n<p>In the writing side of my ministry, I\u2019m determined to be more cautious taking on assignments.\u00a0 In my personal life, I\u2019m doing less\u2014but enjoying it more.<\/p>\n<p>Remember Paul\u2019s advice to the church leaders of Ephesus?\u00a0 He said, \u201cTake heed, therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers\u201d (Acts 20:28).\u00a0 We must take care of ourselves or we\u2019ll be in no condition to take care of our flocks.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you need to make some realignments, too.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll be different from mine, but I wanted to share my testimony to prompt you to consider taking a little<\/p>\n<p>time away\u2014maybe in a tent by the lake or at a nearby state park or resort.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing else, go sit Elijah-like under the nearest juniper tree.\u00a0 Take your Bible and a good book.\u00a0 Rest.\u00a0 Think.\u00a0 Ponder.\u00a0 Pray.\u00a0 Make some realignments if you need to.\u00a0 Cut out some things.\u00a0 Say \u201cNo\u201d to something.\u00a0 Too many of us in the ministry are collapsing from exhaustion.\u00a0 We\u2019re burning out faster than replacements are arriving.\u00a0 We need the wisdom of God to regulate our lives at a sane and sanctified pace.<\/p>\n<p>We need to tend the springs\u2026<\/p>\n<p>to take heed to ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n<p>and to simplify, simplify!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Robert J. Morgan Somewhere, someone is sitting down, glancing at this page and reading these words in a state of utter exhaustion.\u00a0 Perhaps you\u2019re a pastor or you work on a church staff.\u00a0 Perhaps a deacon, trustee or children\u2019s worker.\u00a0 Perhaps a parent, a caregiver or a community volunteer. To that person, I\u2019d like to share a word of personal testimony. Five Hard Years As I write this, I\u2019m recovering from a prolonged period of habitual fatigue that began five years ago when several events converged in my life.\u00a0 My wife\u2019s multiple sclerosis worsened, requiring all kinds of adjustments in our schedule and lifestyle.\u00a0 My daughter\u2019s waywardness took a sharp left turn, causing us days and nights of anxiety. We opened a new wing of our church, leading to accelerated growth and heavier demands.\u00a0 My writing ministry took off full force, doubling my workload and presenting me with new sets of deadlines every month.\u00a0 During this time, I passed the half-century mark and tried to ignore the silent grumblings of an aging body. In the middle of it all, my dear mother passed away.\u00a0 The responsibility for her mountain home and acreage fell on my shoulders, and my sister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4602,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601\/revisions\/4602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nafwb.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}