I just finished a 2 month sabbatical.
Cru’s updated sabbatical policy provides for and encourages missionary staff to take a 2 month sabbatical after 5 years serving full-time and then every 5 years until 20 years serving full-time, when sabbatical is 3 months. Heather and I approaching 14 years. Such a blessing. Such an honor.
It was hard to step away from ministry and leadership responsibilities for a season. But I am so glad that I did.
During the planning process, I uncovered 4 priority issues that needed to be addressed:
- Margin (or lack of margin felt as always being “on”)
- Anxiety
- A critical spirit
- Disappointment (what I now think of as discontentment, which says more about how I tend place my hope for happiness in the wrong things)
and expressed 4 objectives for the time away:
- Significant Connection with God
- Sense of being caught up
- Rhythms of work and rest
- Strategic alignment with calling, purpose, and priorities
Initial reflections from my sabbatical
- My anxiety, critical spirit, and discontentment all all very related. Margin, a gap between my load and my limits, will help. As will being faithful rather than willful.
This helps draw a bullseye on the issue:
“Willful entrepreneurs believe that the outcomes are under their control. Therefore, they do everything they can to manipulate things to their liking, hoping that they can create an end that fits with their desires. Faithful entrepreneurs know that the outcomes belong to God, so they don’t get distracted worrying about how things will end. They expect God to remain faithful to them and to never leave or forsake them, and that promise alone is enough to get them through any setback or difficulty.”
Faith Driven Entrepreneur: What It Takes to Step Into Your Purpose and Pursue Your God-Given Call to Create by Henry Kaestner, J. D. Greear, et al.
- Significant connection with God does not come from some predetermined process. But prayer, reading, solitude, and journaling are helpful.
- If having everything done and all projects complete is the requirement, then I will never experience the sense of being caught up. But the felt need to be caught up seems to go away when I know I am spending my best energy on the right things.
- Rhythms of work and rest are critical to giving best energy to right things. Though not the only rocks in the jar, they are the biggest, and the ones that I need to put in first. Rest (and I’m really talking about sleep) takes perhaps the biggest piece of my 24 hour day. 1 hour to get ready, 7-8 to actually sleep and half and hour for waking up… That’s easily 9 hours. Work (including chores) is easily another 9 hours. And each depends on the other. A good days work requires a good nights sleep and vice versa. But a day doing the wrong work isn’t conducive to good sleep.
- As the years go by, I am less and less interested in spending my energy on anything that is not completely aligned with the priorities derived from my unique, authentic call and purpose. I have never been more drawn to the mission of creating opportunities for the gospel to capture hearts, transform lives, and launch men and women into a life-long adventure with Jesus. The whole campus, to the whole world, in this generation!
- I seem to be at my best when I am exploring and creating opportunities.
3 things I’m grateful for from the last week
- Daisy making good progress with her training
- Monday night Bible study
- To be back from sabbatical, recalibrated, and excited for the next season
What am I learning
For one to know that he is an adopted child of God who is truly loved by his Father is not the same as one’s identity = beloved child of God.
3 goals for next week
- Complete initial plan for round table dinner
- Get invites out for circle summit
- Take next steps to prioritize exploring and creating opportunities