Looking for the Wilderness in an Age of Productivity

[Luke 5:15-16 ESV] 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

One of the greatest dangers for those of us who are in ministry and/or non-profit work is burning out. This is especially troublesome if you are doing this kind of work while raising a family.

Members of the clergy suffer higher rates of obesity and hypertension than the rest of Americans.

Working for non-profits over the past 5 years, I have personally experienced burnout. I have never been as tired in my life as when doing this work. I have noticed anger and resentment grow in me as I go through a grueling day of work and ministry, even as my body is asking me for rest.

Why is This?
I think there are two reasons for our tendency to overwork in ministry.

First, our obsession with productivity in our culture. We value 'doing' more than 'being.' We are what we do. Whatever value you give to the world through your work is the value you receive from this world. Our identity, confidence, and self-esteem is contingent on what we do and accomplish.

With this philosophy, or work ethic, if you want to be better, you have to do better.

Second, ministry and non-profit work are often fueled by our passions. We dedicate ourselves to a good cause, to changing unjust systems so that it benefits the greater number of people. Clergy and ministers are fueled by a passion to serve God and people. We may feel duty-bound to spend ourselves for a cause.

In an age where productivity and hard work are rewarded, and when our passion to serve God and others is fueling us, the result is a perfect storm for burnout.

What Can We Do?
In the reading from Luke, we see that as Jesus' ministry grows, He found more opportunities to withdraw to the wilderness.

For many of us, witnessing our work and ministry grow and attract more people can be an exhilarating experience. We can easily get caught up in the excitement of our work. We may experience a new high that can easily become obsessive. We may plunge even deeper into our work.

Jesus doesn't seem preoccupied about that. His joy and excitement seem unaffected by His popularity. In fact, in chapter 5 of Luke, after healing a man with leprosy, Jesus instructs him not to tell anyone. Jesus seems not in the least concerned with growing His popularity and thus growing His ministry.

As His ministry grew, Jesus began to withdraw to desolate places. His initial reaction, unlike many of ours, is not to plunge deeper into His work. His initial reaction is to withdraw. How radical this is! How contrary to our own logic of productivity! Imagine if, when things get busier in your work, instead of working more you looked for opportunities to withdraw. I'm sure many of us would get fired if we did this!

And we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus withdraws to desolate places. Desolate places in the New Testament can be synonymous with deserts, places with few people and resources. These are places where there seems to be little life. He withdraws from places that are full of worldly life to find a Greater Life.

Jesus does more than just withdraw. He doesn't withdraw simply to have a nap or a cup of tea while enjoying the sunlight (not that there is anything wrong with that). But the Scriptures tells us that He withdraws to pray.

While physical rest is good and necessary, spiritual rest is even better and more necessary. Hebrews 4:10-11a describes entering God's presence as entering into His rest: "for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his work as God did from His. Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest."

The Greek word for strive in verse eleven is spoudazo. This word can be translated as diligence, eagerness, and even labor.  In its counter-intuitive and paradoxical way, the Scriptures uses a word related to hard work and productivity to call us to rest!

Striving for God's Rest
I am not trying to discount hard work. It seems to me there are many instances where Jesus works hard for His ministry. But Jesus is also diligent in returning to the wilderness. When Jesus started His ministry, the Holy Spirit guided Him to 40 days and nights in the wilderness.

As His ministry grows, He strives to return to that wilderness in the presence of God. Jesus returns to the place where He found His calling. He returns to that place of intimacy where He found His name of Beloved.

During Lent, we are called to follow Jesus in the wilderness. During our hard labor, our ceaseless ministry, it is most necessary to respond to the call of the wilderness.

We are called to withdraw from the crowds, the merciless goals and checklists, and return to that place of intimacy. Many of us get inspired to start our work of ministry after a powerful, transformative, and personal encounter with God. His love propels us to do our work.

As the years pass by and our ministry grows, we may forget that experience of intimacy in the wilderness, where God came and gave us the name of Beloved.

Let us labor then to enter into that rest, to return to that place of intimacy and experience once again the depth of God's rest.

Lessons Learned in 2015!

2015 was an amazing year.

2015 will be a year that I will always hold dear in my heart for many reasons, the biggest one being my marriage.

We are prone to look back, at the beginning of a new year, to remember the year that has passed us by. And so, before I look forward to what 2016 has in store for me, I want to look back at the biggest lessons 2015 taught me.

Lesson 1: We are Never Going to be Ready

At the beginning of 2015 I was a newly engaged man. My engagement came with a cocktail of emotions. Amid the highs and enthusiasm of my oncoming marriage, I was pierced by a fear: the fear of not being ready for marriage.

I was afraid of my own immaturity. This fear came with a healthy dose (or unhealthy?) of self-contempt. After many years and efforts of self-growth and character development, why am I still immature?

I hated when people told me something like "you have grown A LOT, but...". I hated it not because I was closed to criticism (at least I hope I wasn't) but because despite the "A LOT" of growth that I've done, I was still nowhere near the elusive goal of maturity. 

Not only that, if A LOT is not enough to get me close to where I need to be, what does that say about the place I was to begin with? Was I so incredibly immature, so immensely out of character, so hopelessly far behind that even after many years of A LOT of growth, I was nowhere near to where I was supposed to be?

I resented it, and I felt like crap. Either I haven't grown A LOT and people were just being nice to me, or I started with very poor material to being with.

With this incredible pressure over me, I tried to grow as much as I could. I felt like I was in a time bomb that will explode and destroy everything I wanted to accomplish unless I work my butt off and do some growing before my time is up.

The pressure, unfortunately, was also paralyzing. I started to resent myself and others. I never felt good enough. Many tears were shed in the name of incompetency. 

As the months passed by in this state, I came to the conclusion that I was never going to be ready, and that's OK.

A few days before the wedding, my fiancé and I visited the priest who was the pastor of the church where we'd get married. He was guiding us through the last preparations of the ceremony.

As we entered his office, we caught him in the middle of a fascinating conversation with his secretary. "Baptism is no sort of magical thing that instantaneously makes us holy" he was saying to her, "that's bad theology".

"Let me give you an example" he continued. "When I was ordained a priest, did I walk like a priest? Did I talk like a priest? Did I behave like a priest? No I didn't. And yet I was a priest, but I still had to grow in my role as a priest".

When I heard that it reinforced what I learned to accept: It's OK to not be ready.

This beloved priest, even after years of seminary, he still had to spend many years growing into his role as a priest. 

And so it is with us. With whatever project, job, ministry, or role that we take, we are never going to be completely ready for it, but it is by going into it with a humble and a beginner's mind that we'll be successful in it. More often than not, the person who is most confident in his readiness is the one who is not.

I'm not saying that preparations are irrelevant. The priest spent probably 5 years in seminary training to be a priest. I spent many years growing before marriage, and those years were necessary.

What I am saying is that after some considerable preparation, we should not be afraid of plunging into situations we may not feel completely ready for, for the situation itself will be the last stage of our preparation.

Marriage is the tool that will transform me into a husband.

Lesson 2: God is More Interesting on Being than on Doing.

What would Jesus do? We ask ourselves, in the pious hope of making the right choices and doing the right things in any given situation.

This apparently simple question seems to make sense. After all, as Christians, Jesus is supposed to be an example.

But Jesus is more than just an example. He is The Way. He is not a simple road sign. He is the road we need to walk on.

At the end of 2015, I became restless. I was entering into my Holiday break, and I intended to take advantage of it.

As the precious days of vacation passed, I became increasingly worried that I wasn't enjoying them enough. I felt like I was wasting time, and that I wasn't doing, or not doing, enough things to make this time meaningful.

The horrible restlessness continued in its merciless rage. I didn't know how to deal with it, or what to do (or not do) to shake off the nagging feeling.

Finally, I prayed. Always a good idea.

I simply asked God to tell me what to do about it. You are too concerned about doing, concentrate on being and the restlessness will go away I heard.

The answer seemed too simple, but maybe this was my way out of this horrible feeling. I started to concentrate more and more on how I could be the person God wanted me to be, despite what I did or did not do.

I noticed that whenever I concentrated on being, my restlessness seemed to disappear, and it would only reappear once I started thinking on what I had to do.

As westerners and achievers, our emphasis is on doing great things. I suspect that God is not too interested in our marvelous deeds.

He seems more interested in who we are. He is interested in relationships, and relationships is more than just doing things for each other.

Relationships is more about being with each other.

That's it for me! What are the biggest lessons you learned in 2015?