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Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.
Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.
Sometimes we get so busy rowing the boat, we don’t take the time to stop and see where we’re going . . . or what we are becoming.
In the ministry of shepherding people, we learn to depend on such tools as insight, intuition, judgment, and discernment. Developing and honing these skills makes for a great leader, but if unguarded, it opens the door to under-processed conclusions and inaccurate assumptions. The ability to precisely define reality is the starting point for any hope for equilibrium.
When my wheels fell off, I knew that it was due to a longstanding practice of disregarding certain feelings of inadequacy, discouragement, and anger. I could no longer afford to ignore these things or tolerate them as unresolved issues in my life.
I felt the need to perform, to succeed, to endure and win at any cost. That was one embedded principle I needed to unlearn.
I also had to determine—to really settle in my soul—what I would actually be held accountable for in my life.
It may be a legitimate concern, but it is not our responsibility.
Learning the difference between a concern and a responsibility may save your ministry, your family, and your sanity.
“The happiest people I know are the ones who have learned how to hold everything loosely and have given the worrisome, stress-filled, fearful details of their lives into God’s keeping.” CHARLES R. SWINDOLL
Don’t worry about anything . . . pray about everything.
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them—work, family, health, friends, and spirit—and you are keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls—family, health, friends, and spirit—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
If you and I are going to enjoy healing and rest at our very core, we must discover and discern the top 5 percent of life.
The Divine Mentor,
But 5 percent of what I do, only I can do! This the most important 5 percent for me.
What were the things that only I could do and, if neglected, would affect the rest of my life? Here are the responsibilities I wrote down: 1. A vibrant, growing relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ 2. A healthy and genuine relationship with my spouse 3. An authentic family that is close to God and close to one another 4. A God-pleasing ministry 5. A physically healthy body and a creative soul 6. Taking time to enjoy life with family and friends
We won’t be held accountable for how much we have done, but for how much we have done of what He has asked us to do.
Your faith, your marriage, your family, and your health have to be not only priorities, but higher priorities than everything else, including work, money, promotion, or position.
Thomas à Kempis wrote: “A good, devout person first arranges inwardly the things to be done outwardly. . . . Who has a fiercer struggle than the person who strives to master himself? And this must be our occupation: to strive to master ourselves and daily to grow stronger and advance for good.”
Is there ever a time when sex outside of marriage can be an option? • Is there ever a reason to abandon my family? • Can I indulge in immorality and still keep my faith intact?
The goal is not to “get over depression” quickly. The goal is to draw close to God. When my focus is on God, I am helped tremendously. Then I can find the positive things to look at that lift my spirit.
“Your soul,” my psychologist friend explained, “is like a battery that discharges each time you give life away, and it needs to be recharged regularly. You haven’t given it time to recharge, and that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual, slow recharge.”
“For two months, do as many of the things that fill your tank as you can. That is how you recharge.”
Have your spouse do the same, then share your lists over a nice evening dinner. Exchange the lists: You take your spouse’s and he/she takes yours. Then for the next three months, use that list as your prayer list, promising to help each other by encouraging what fills your tanks and doing what you can to alleviate what drains the other’s tank.
Solitude is a healthy and prescriptive discipline; isolation is a symptom of emotional depletion.
There will always be a tension between what I do and who I am because they run so closely together.
John 15:16 reminds me: “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.”
Pastoring people is not a business. It’s a life calling. It’s who you are, and who you are (in this case) is inescapably tied to what you do.
Check out this quote.
The best lives are like notebooks whose writings are read and reflected upon over and over again.
experience plus reflection will grant us insight, and insight helps us to grow and change.
Pain is inevitable. Misery is not. You see, pain is a result of loving deeply and living fully. Misery, on the other hand, is a result of living without reflecting and trying to forge our future without insight.
for the heart to grow stronger, it must undergo stress.
As much as I wanted to avoid the pain of depression and its accompanying de-motivation, God would use those very things to build within me an even stronger heart and lifestyle.
We can also allow our depression to draw us nearer to God. In a quiet place, in a world strangely altered by the life changes that have come upon us, we focus on the One who is both outside of ourselves and within us. And we soon realize that is precisely where we must focus in order to heal.
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live from deep within your heart where God’s Spirit dwells. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world and in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously try what you don’t think you can do, but in Jesus Christ you’ll have the
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God’s ways are certainly not our ways, and all too often before the truth sets you free, it will make you miserable.
Faith is living in advance what we will only understand in reverse.
When Jesus talks about our eye, He refers to the way we perceive life’s events. If we perceive them poorly and negatively, they will adversely affect us emotionally as well as physically. Depression isn’t necessarily a sin, but we can indeed fall into sin by an inaccurate or distorted perception of God, others, or our circumstances. The way we view our problem oftentimes is the problem! If our perception is poor, opportunities become terrifying and invitations appear as threats.
where you stand will always affect what you see.
Check out this quote.
In the turbulence of depression, when you do not know which way to turn, focus back on what God called you to do in the first place.
Paul knew his divine commission. When the storm hit, everyone around him was screaming, “We’re going to die!” Paul said, “I’m not. I’m going to Rome.”
Paul was a man of great confidence even in the midst of storms and snakebites, because he knew God had a divine commission for him.
What has God called you to do? What will He hold you accountable for at the end of your life?
Check out this quote.
Write down the first, second, and third priorities of your calling. Place this list somewhere readily accessible so you can come back to it when needed.
“Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).
Check out this quote.
Until I began to see my depression as a constant reminder that I needed to stay close to God, it was simply an annoying pain that plagued me daily. My first step toward rehabilitation was to see my depression as a positive challenge that drew me closer to Christ on a daily basis.
“Each morning I say to myself, ‘Michael, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.’
‘I can choose to be a victim to this situation and cave in, or I can learn from it and be better.
Living well must become intentional.
From now on, depression will never be far away.
