Who is with you Behind the boat? When its mid life is it Crisis time?

HOW DO YOU GET SELFCARE WHILE GIVING OTHERS CARE

Gillian’s read on “Rest in the storm” Kirk Byron Jones

We look outwardly happy and successful but most of us suffer from inner pain, mostly because we are trying to do too much and trying to be all things for all people. This has effects in our families and the people we lead. We must learn to confess personal overload and confess insufficient self-care as a subtle but lethal expression of personal and social violence.

As Howard Thurman writes “teach us how to respond to the needs of thy children in ways that do not undermine the self, but inspire and enliven the spirit”.

Is there someone being ignored? Through many years of wear and tear and toll taking ministry service mostly someone is being ignored and that is “Me”.

 Is self negligence a very strong word to use? This negligence seems to be acceptable and an easy camouflage for our society.

 Why Acceptable?  Because its most often rewarded with being exceptional and going beyond the call of duty, we camouflage unhealthy living habits in the rhetoric of unselfish sacrificial living.

Barbra Brown “faithfulness to God is something different from multiple committee memberships and evening meetings”

Pressure of modern life is the most influence to self negligence; we have forces in our modern way of life that constantly urges us on like cheerleaders at a football game. The cheer goes like “more, more, Faster, faster.

It’s good to pause and reflect on the way our cult rural values and expectations have been altered as a result of massive and relatively recent technological advancement.

Hurry Swenson “Haste is a modern ailment. It also is fashionable, our lives are nonstop, we walk, talk, and eat fast.

The cheers from within are far more powerful than those from outside, overdoing the below three becomes undoing.

·       Achievement- a drive for achievement can wring and water out our soul leaving nothing for prayer, joy, patience, family etc.

·       Adrenaline (The energy that surges through our system and gives us the rush and makes us feel good temporarily)- too much energy even when much of it is focused on positive goals still wears and tears the body.

·       Affirmation –need for others to like us

The problem is not with the above but our addiction to them is the problem.

“Its not my sister or my brother but its me Lord”

We tend to resist identifying and exposing the weak places lurking inside of us for fear of being vulnerable and undermining the image of the minister we have become. We must acknowledge personal responsibility with humility and accept that we are in need and so we come to God with our issues

Ecclencial competition sometimes stands as a hindrance, the mighty minister and successful ministry ideal form a very powerful deterrent to self acknowledgement. There are some unrealistic expectations which we want to meet. We tend to deny that we have a person in us besides the responsibilities we have.

How can we accept and love the humanity in those we serve if we don’t accept and love the humanity of ourselves.

We must face our self negligence unholy and unhealthy addictions which is for most of us a lifestyle until we are fully delivered. Even then complete deliverance will require unceasing vigilance.

 

Mark 4: 35-41

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!”Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

                    

I have recently found myself in a place wanting the storm in my life to be calmed. This passage is not just a source of relief but also a model for learning how to cope with conditions of overload and overdrive.

How did Jesus handle the demands that were being put on him? All day long Jesus had been teaching from a borrowed boat and after his sessions ended they made themselves comfortable in the boat with the disciples, after a tiresome day.

Jesus very overwhelmed sleeps over. I can see that picture of Jesus asleep.

Our perception of a Jesus who was always busy are challenged by indications of him sleeping He was not always busy.

The savior actually slept, Jesus perfection did not exempt him from taking care of his human body.

Sleeplessness is a primary symptom of a person who is over committed. Sleep is not a waste of time.

While he laid back on the boat he didn’t heal teach or minister to anyone.

We must learn to make it to the back of the boat if we are to overcome insufficient self-care.

BACK OF THE BOAT

This is a metaphor, a symbol of the necessary break from activism of life in general and the rigors of ministry. This is where we practice margin (the space between our load and our limits, Vitality and exhaustion) it’s our breathing room.

Is it luxury? Is it optional? It’s not optional if our intention is to lead a healthy balanced and productive life.

While we are at the back of the boat we face formidable obstructions to getting to rest.

While we take a back seat at the boat we have to consider 2 things.

Ø   Indispensability- life will go along just fine during our time behind the boat. Believing ourselves to be an essential indispensable element of a program is a lie, its bowing down to a god of personal irreplaceable-ability. We need to be off duty at one point. We must shake indispensability.

Ø  Invisibility- we cannot continue moving on and on even when we keep feeling we have limitless reserves of compassion and energy. We are not invisible.

It is liberating to stop measuring life only with what we do, before we are a minister, preacher, mentor, parent etc you are a child of God and God loves us unconditionally.

Mostly we first inadvertently discard legitimate person hood along with the garbage of selfishness and egoism. As we seek to dodge praise from others we unwittingly may wipe any sense of ourselves as persons. (Those with difficulties accepting compliments but diverting them to others or to God) We need to acknowledge the place of God others and humbly see our value as well.

Second we throw away our sense of person hood as we reach for achievement after achievement becoming unable to see ourselves clearly apart from what we do and produce.

In both cases we see false humility

Jesus made it to the back of the boat because he knew that as much as he was a teacher preacher and healer he was something else deep

er, a child of God, who needed time to be nurtured by the father. He needed time to receive as much as he gave.

Rev Robert Walker “if we are not careful we can allow ourselves to be completely overtaken by roles and expectations.”

We go to the back of the boat to remember who and whose we are; we receive a refreshing of our minds body and spirit.

“At the back of the boat delight is found, not in what we produce but in what we can, if only for a moment, open ourselves to receive unconditionally”

 

Follow me on this. am just in chapter 4. And am soo challenged and getting my perspectives changed.