Slowing Down

Sabbatical. Sabbath. The consistent theme of the summer. It's a Biblical rhythm for living. Today is a wee bit of sabbatical on this trip - we're slowing down - we'll see and hear things we wouldn't have seen before. The last 5 days were pretty much go, go and go. We saw a lot, did a lot, experienced many great things and my guess is missed things as well.....because we were in "go mode."

The object of life is not to wear ourselves out. A case can be made to wear yourself out for the Lord but I think about it differently - I want to use my life for His Kingdom but if I wear myself out physically, emotionally and mentally then I'm of no use to Him or anyone else. I want to be useful to my last day on earth, not ending months or years before.

I mentioned in an earlier post about coming back to the theme of self-care not being selfish. That's the idea here, I think. "How am I making disciples?" is a good question to ask of ourselves each day. Is it ok to play racquetball, swim, work out, take a nap and still say I'm about the business of making disciples? I've always believed these were good things and this summer I'm convinced even more that I (or anyone else) can say, "Yes, this is part of making disciples."

Self-care is not selfish. And I'm beginning to take it further: eating well is part of making disciples. If I eat well and exercise my physical body has more energy, my mind is sharper and therefore I'm better at making disciples.

If I take time to read a book that interests me there can be both insights for my own life and information that God can use during encounters with others.

If I'm always available to everyone who asks I'm not following the pattern of Jesus. The Scripture describes Jesus saying no, moving on, going away to "lonely places." I will wear myself out and be of no use.

Kingdom work is strategic work. It's the work we read about in Acts 6 which records the first complaint in the new church. It was a serious complaint that came to the Apostles and they saw that it was taken care of but they didn't take care of it themselves. Did the Apostles help serve at the beginning? Probably, so that they modeled serving.