As my spiritual journey takes me into my 30’s, I’m beginning to realize that spiritual growth involves a lot of review. Lessons that were learned long ago in my life have had to be re-visited, chewed on, and wrestled with again and again.
Take, for example, a lesson that was learned from a particularly difficult situation in my life seven years ago. After our engagement was broken off by my fiancé, I was devastated. This may seem at first, to be a fairly natural response to a very difficult situation. However, when your life revolves around the fulfilment of a dream like marriage or full-time ministry service (or in this case, a combination of the two), such circumstances cause your life to spiral out of perspective. For about a month, I looked for relief from my pain, even going so far as to seriously ponder taking my own life. Then, one day, as I prayed, the clouds parted and I remembered the centre of my life, around which everything else revolved. And the “marriage and full-time ministry” ideal was not it. At least, it wasn't meant to be.
Recently I’ve been acknowledging the fact that I will naturally have a tendency to go into my marriage in December desiring a healthy relationship with my wife more than anything else – which will be a mistake with potentially devastating implications. If I choose that path, chances are, I will attempt to change any character weaknesses in her that show up on my “super pastor radar,” thus making her feel like my pet project by how I treat her. Our relational distance will increase and at some point, we’ll be encouraged to spend our life savings on a counsellor who will try to help us (or rather, me) see things that my stubborn ego won’t allow me to see for myself.
If, however, I go into our upcoming marriage with my heart’s desire securely fixed on that which it was created for, I will want the best for Kristy and for our marriage, but I will be free to love, pray for, nurture, and empower her without any pressure to get our marriage healthy by trying to "fix her" (potentially in ways that she may not even need to be fixed!) My joy in life will not be threatened by whether or not my marriage is working out the way I want it to.
I’ve made the same mistake with ministry throughout the years. Too often, a “successful ministry” has become the greatest desire of my heart, overshadowing that which is meant to be the supreme source of my fulfilment and pleasure in life. Now, if I really was some sort of super-pastor – writing best-selling books and speaking in stadiums full of people – I might be able to pull it off. Ministry success would be an ostensibly great source of fulfilment. But it would still be a wrong source and, worse yet, a considerably paltry source of fulfilment in comparison with that which I am designed to find my supreme pleasure in.
It’s only now, after a good twelve years of concentrated ministry experience that I finally feel like I’m able to catch myself when I begin looking to my ministry performance for pleasure and satisfaction in life, rather than looking to my Maker and to the intimacy He has offered me. John Piper puts it this way: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” I think the third word in that statement is debatable, but it’s a helpful and inspiring aphorism. I think another way to put is this: “Only when God alone is the centre of our affections (our fulfilment, pleasure, and satisfaction) are we freed to live the full life that He intended us to live.” When this happens, there is a refreshing freedom to love people and step out in ministry to them, without the restraints of approval addiction or the crippling pressure of expectations and result-driven effort.
It’s something we all do. It’s human nature to look to our own resources to make life work the way we want it to and in such a way that it will bring us joy and fulfilment in life. I, for one, am done trying to make life work. Nowadays I’m just trying to round up all my misdirected pleasure and focus it in on my Creator, where it belongs. Hopefully, 7 years from now, I’ll be a little better at it than I am now.
psalm 63.1-5; jeremiah 24.7; ezekiel 36.26; matthew 22.37-40
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