Can you get too much of a good thing?
I have no higher calling than serving the Lord, no greater joy than preaching and teaching His Word. How can it be that sometimes I reach the saturation point!
Books are written and fortunes accrued addressing the popular theme “Burnout”. Most times, I think it’s a bunch of bunk. Recently I heard a sportswriter ask Lebron James if he had burnout in basketball. Exuse me? Do you suppose Elvis ever said to himself, “I’ve sung enough.”? When geese fly south, do they ponder stopping halfway, say in Kentucky?
However, to my surprise as a young pastor, the rigors of ministry proved a bit taxing. As years passed, telltale signs emerged. Normally highly organized (Brenda might say to a fault), I became forgetful. My professional craft is communication, yet occasionally I struggled with slurred speech. ...Puzzling for me, a lifelong teetotaler.... I knew I was reaching the tipping point when I became more irritated than normal with the very people I was trying to shepherd. (Uh, sheep are frustrating animals, you know.)
This present platform of ministry as an itinerant speaker is quite distinct from the demands of the local parish. Yet, like any job or station in life, it presents it’s own unique set of challenges. When on top of my game, I embrace them with reckless abandon. Yet after months of a heavy schedule, my Superman Cape needs laundering and hung in the closet for a spell.
Too many days on the road, too numerous sleepless nights, unfamiliar places and faces, even too many sermons; and warning lights begin to blink. You would never know, and will never know; but I do. Whenever I secretly say to myself, “Just point me in the direction, and I’ll go do my thing.” I am nearing overload. Oh indeed, I still say the right things, am committed to the Word, and speak with palpable passion. Yet, that passion has to be summoned rather than the passion summoning me!
Paul stated in Corinthians, “I am eager to preach the gospel.” Me too! Here’s an inside tip: when he wrote that, he must have been writing from home. Inconveniently, we’re human. We have limits. I admit, I am out to save the world; I just have to do it in bite-size chunks.
You, too.
Oh, by the way, I’m writing this on a plane at 30,000 feet, ...somewhere in the world....