When Jesus called us to follow Him, He knew that sometimes we would be staggering instead of skipping. He knew that there would be lots of potholes in the road. He knew that when we are so exhausted, we might just need to rest.
Church and Christian leaders have shared with me that the pandemic has made them realise just how fast they were moving and how many things they were involved in. Coronavirus stripped away much of the activism and exposed their own spiritual poverty.
Could it be that many of the plates you have been spinning were never given to you by the Holy Spirit in the first place? That does not mean that they were bad activities, but were they the best thing for you?
Many church leaders get into the trap of filling their lives with stuff we think God will love; they replace divine encounter with human activism. Now, worn out and weary, they realise that they may have missed something precious. They’ve forgotten that their impact in the world is solely based on the closeness of their walk with God.
I am not talking about perfection but desire, the longing for God in the desperation of a worshipping follower. For some, as the activism has been stripped away, they have found the nakedness of their spirituality and it has been painful. The Elastoplast of activism is no longer there and through busyness and exhaustion they know that this is a moment to restore their spiritual desire.
I have been in that place of being busy every day, spending all my time doing stuff that I thought was extending the kingdom but not realising that I needed to hang out more with Jesus.
To restore your spiritual energy and passion, follow the Matthew 11:28 principle: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Accept where you are. Don’t pretend you have it all together. Be open with God and accept that He loves you and His grace is sufficient. You don’t need to be a high achiever to earn God’s love. You simply need to take the step of honest vulnerability, bringing your weariness and frustration to the Lord to allow Him to give you the rest that only He can give. Until we see our need, we will find it difficult to receive His peace. We need to drop the masks we sometimes wear and in our woundedness allow the peace of God to be at work in us.
Read more of the series:
Wounded leadership: four-part editorial series
Take some time out to ponder and refocus with these short reflections on leading from a place of weakness Read more
