Hey you,

It’s true, I fought it for years, but at last I have purchased an Apple Watch.

It’s great technology, why fight it? Probably because part of me rebels at the notion of being mainstream. Why not go find that great vintage watch at some flea market in Spain and buy it from the little grandfather who lives, breathes, eats and sleeps watches?

Where’s the story in an Apple Watch?

“Oh yeah, there was a sale on Amazon and so I bought a watch.”

Boring.

But this is exactly what happened, and it turns out, there was a story.

A reluctant convert.

I didn’t want to be mainstream, but sometimes mainstream is popular for a decent reason. It turned out to be handy to have a smart watch.

Things like, picking up my phone less because I was able to see what was urgent and what wasn’t. Focus, man. On the other hand you can locate the phone using the watch, which is helpful to someone like me who constantly misplaces things.

There were also things like the GPS, which made me a slightly safer driver, and the fact that if I have to get up super early it’s much nicer to have a little elf tap your wrist instead of blare in your ear. Not having to carry a phone to run is pretty nice, too.

All in all, a satisfactory buy.

Especially when I discovered certain features come with fascinating discoveries.

There is a problem that afflicts some people when it comes to public appearance: their heart beat goes crazy. This is me. Anything in front of people ranges from slight nerves to panic for me and it’s taken a good 3 years just to work through the worst aspects of stage fright with the worship team I’m part of — it freaks me out. Dry mouth, racing pulse, erratic breath, you get the picture.

One time with my dad (he used to play with a small-time bluegrass band) he got me up on stage at a festival to help him sing. It was 1,000 people, give or take a few, and I’ll never forget the feeling of being so… seen. It was awful. It was… exhilarating.

Singing, music… it’s one of the most sacred parts of my life. My mother says before I could speak I would come bumping down the steps each morning with my wordless songs.

This sacredness has made it much harder to face the fear. If it meant less, it wouldn’t bother me.

Speaking is a little the same way, and by dint of speaking even when it was terrifying or made me look like a fool, I’ve overcome much of that shyness as well. Occasionally though it still gets me. When it happened the other day I clocked my heart beat right after, just for fun. Sure enough, it had shot from a resting beat of 60 BPM to 126. So funny isn’t it? The physical manifestation of fears or anxieties in our life aren’t always quantifiable, but for a few seconds the other day I had a measurement of it and it was close to running BPM.

Run the race…

I like running, mostly while not running, but have also started to enjoy the process. It brings the coveted runners high, for starters, but beyond that I see my moods improve, physical fitness get better, and life get better all around. It’s not easy, kind of like public singing and speaking, but for some reason I keep pressing in and looking for metrics of improvement. More miles covered. More consistency musically. More excellence.

It’s good for humans to have measurements. It’s not such a popular view right now, since we’re all about the “don’t let anyone tell you who or how you should be” chant. I get that, and even support it in the sense that each person must decide where and how to run. But we are to help each other on the way and sometimes other humans can see what we can’t.

How do you know what you’re doing if you don’t have a standard for it? All life comes from the heart, where only God can measure it, but then it needs to find expression in our physical universe or we turn into the human version of the Dead Sea. Lots of inflow but no outflow makes a person into the bad kind of salty. We need the criticism, and we need the beginnings and ends and goals and good works.

We need to create and build things. It’s a God-given part of us and as a result it’s often a bit scary. What if we fail? What if we look stupid?

I’ve thought about it often. How on earth do we manage to work from a good place and find satisfaction in what we do? For years I was too afraid to put myself out there or claim any ownership of the command to be fruitful and multiply. That’s a command which has become narrowed into having kids and populating the earth, but that’s really only one of the ways. We’re part of a bigger work of multiplying and increasing.

I really wanted it to be enough to love and be loved, and yes, needed the solid grounding in this important reality before stepping out into a place where the invisible love in me becomes visible in work and calling.

Frankly, I wanted to stay in a place of milky spiritual theology. A place which didn’t require the maturity of figuring out the question of works and how to create and increase. I don’t think that’s going to fly with God. He’s going to ask what I did with my talent and what you did with yours, and he’s going to want to see what we’ve created from it because he is the creator, and we are made in his image. Not because our core worth or identity comes from works, it doesn’t, but because we are made in God’s image and he built into us that creative part of himself. He couldn’t have made it clearer. Be fruitful.

Grow. Move. Plant. Weed. Harvest. Build. Multiply. Give it a rest. Do it again. God is the master of the “do it again.” Have you checked out how often the sun rises and sets? He loves those rhythms.

Not everyone is going to get the same gifts, and we’re not all expected to get the same kinds of returns, but we have to use the ones we’ve received. Remember the parable of the talents?

God is really quite kind in how he sets things up. He starts us as babies and children: dependence, learning and doing small things. The kingdom of God is set up the same way, for unless you become as a child you cannot enter the kingdom. Small things. He loves them. He built a universe off things like atoms.

We don’t have to spring into things full grown, thank God!

Human beings need growth. We grow up from children to adults, and adult to adult as we change personally. We are faithful in small things because in this world, small things build into bigger things and with it, our character is built. It’s head and heart theology which provides foundation for hand and foot theology. All very important. I can think about running and get good at it in my head, but unless it translates into action I’m not getting benefit from it.

That’s been the big struggle for me, because I’m a head person. It’s easy for me to think, but hard to convert thoughts into action. It’s just more recently that I’m working to think less and do more. This order might be different for someone else, and certainly the way we ‘do’ or think switches up over a lifetime.

Ain’t got just one set formula for this one.

Except, when it comes to our fears. We have to constantly lay aside that weight and run our race.

One of the things I’ve been looking at is how to differentiate between work that makes us miserable, and work that is tough and requires some real endurance, but is full of joy.

Why do we Christians often take the approach in life that unless something is miserable and heavy, it’s not worth anything? It’s tough line to walk, because sometimes we use that as an excuse to opt out of difficult things when we should stay and face it out. How do we know when we need to commit to the hard and “run our race” or find another race. When it is love calling us to a place of sacrifice, or when we merely sacrifice things we are not called to sacrifice, like joy. When suffering is full of glory, or when we are just trying to get in some glory for ourselves. You know?

Take running. You can run because it’s something worth it to you to push on with, or you can run even though you absolutely hate it. Guess which person is actually going to do well at it? For the second person it’s better to go find the form of exercise you can do because you love it. You will ultimately perform so, so much better at it because it’s something enjoyable. (Since the Bible only used running a race as a metaphor, it’s not something you can develop a doctrine around anyway)

How do we know when to opt out, and recognize that we’re not on the right track, and when do we know to push a little harder and get past that wall?

Like Gerard Butler. How did he decide to opt out of law school and become an actor? He could’ve said, “I’m not wasting all those years at school” but what would’ve happened if he’d continued on the path to become a lawyer? He might have spent many mediocre or eventually miserable years in a path which didn’t belong to him.

We can’t be everything. We have to choose something, and we don’t always know which way to go.

I’ve done a fair bit personally of trying to squeeze myself into positions or even jobs that I’m just not suited to be any good at. I will probably never be a person who loves miniscule little details, so to squash myself into a job which requires that attention is a bad idea.

Then again, sometimes you just have to try when you’re young and starting out. Face the fears and find out where to push through and where to say no.

Do we get to have joy and satisfaction in our work? Is this too much to ask? I don’t know, but I’m suspecting that it’s not something you can pursue directly or you’ll keep chasing a feeling in work, instead of satisfaction and contentment. Still, Jesus says that joy is a fruit of the spirit and I guess I’m seeing this a little more black and white than I used to. If I’ve gone joyless in my work for a long time (and this to me is anything from ministry to personal to professional) it’s time for a gentle question or two, and some brutal honesty.

This is a process I’ve gone through recently. I’m part of a kid’s church that I’ve poured about 6 years of effort into now, and the past 2-3 years have been rough personally. I joined the leadership team a few years in, and have been there through what has been almost an entirely new set of team members. Along the way we have had tricky church dynamics to work through, volunteer burnouts (at one point 3 dropped out in one evening, kinda devastating to a ministry our size) and another niggling issue I just could not put my finger on but which I suspected was the root of some of the above.

I tried pretty hard to figure it out and hurt some people along the way, something that will always make me sad. At first I was optimistic that we could get it figured out, but as people dropped out of the organization right and left it got harder and harder. After awhile, it felt like just me, slightly lunatic to keep fixating that something was missing.

For awhile I thought it might be better if I left. Perhaps it was a personal problem. Discouragement and burnout were getting to me. It was a heavy burden to bear knowing that I wasn’t in a good place to serve as one of the leaders. How could I help boost team morale when mine was down in the negative? The only thing which kept me going was this really incredible staff of volunteers. Truly salt of the earth. The other was the knowledge that this ministry is here for such a time as this. In a time when the response to a pandemic was ruining childhoods, one of the important things for them was to continue to have a consistent place of security.

My role is not important enough to wreck things if I leave, but it’s also just big enough that it would really detract from the staff’s ability to keep serving the kids. At a time like this I would never be able to forgive myself to flake.

But also, times like this take more from you then normal, and I didn’t have much left to give.

I really wanted to run away from it and let someone else sort out some of our foundational cracks, but when leaders do this they end up hurting a lot of people. On the other hand leaders leading from a place of burnout also hurts people. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of thing.

I just kept going, little by little, for love and the knowledge of what would happen if I left in this state of burnout. But I knew, there was an equally good chance that at some point I was going to snap. A failure.

You can always do more than you think you can. I begged God to help me push through this and instead he answered, “take it easy.” “Keep running.”

Ha. Not something that comes naturally. If there’s a problem I want to see it through and quick. No messing about.

But sometimes you have to wait. Let the timing ripen. Breathe through the labor.

Then, the time was right and I was able to finally communicate with my fellow co-leaders. I wish I could describe to you the burden that rolled off of me when we finally had that conversation. I could’ve probably gone and run about 5 miles, no sweat.

At that conversation I realized, I had tried to take up a calling that was not mine. I have a role to fulfill at this ministry, and I love it, but this deficit we had was one I kept trying to fill personally and it was not mine to fill. As time went on, this just got heavier and heavier, because I was never enough. Each failure just made it worse, until eventually even joy and vision was being taken from me. Burnout isn’t pretty.

This happens when we try to do the things which are not ours to do, when we don’t recognize our boundaries.

The whole thing shifted when I finally got up the courage to be vulnerable with these team leaders. I don’t think something shifted in the organization itself, so much as I laid something down that I had carried too heavy, too long. It felt like the instant I laid it down, there was the clarity I had searched for in the past 3 years. As a team we figured out what was up in a way that I wasn’t equipped to do on my own. How’s that for humble pie? But it was such a relief that I didn’t even care.

And I began to see that when we are willing to suffer personal harm for someone or something else (like this ministry with these kids) for love, then we truly know what it is to love. But I also learned some integral life lessons when it comes to the jobs/work/callings we pick up and carry. A sort of, “this is what sacrifice does not look like.”

Jobs/callings/work which isolate you are not good burdens. They may be about good things, like ministry and work, but please don’t do what I did and fall into that trap. If you are carrying something heavy which you cannot talk about, please know that this is a big red flag. We are not meant to be alone.

Calling that is not ours comes with a heavy yoke attached. It will isolate us, convince us that the whole world hangs on us, and tell us that we are always going to be stuck.

Burdens with no joy did not come from Jesus. I don’t know much about life, but I know this: you are never, ever asked to go into your calling without joy and peace and hope while following Jesus. If you are going without these things, there is a chance there is something you need to lay down and surrender.

Burdens with no rest (boundaries) are not wise or sustainable. Further, they are not the way of God. If you follow God you know that rest is absolutely something he prioritizes, and even commanded at times in history. If you cannot find rest, it may be that you are in a place you should not be, or listening too much to your own or someone else’s critical voice. Criticism which is of the good kind will encourage both discipline and hard work, alongside rest and rejuvenation.

If you find yourself in this kind of place, take hope. You may have some more hills to run, or you may have to go back and find the right turning, and change the road you’re on. You may have to be painfully vulnerable. You may discover your weaknesses in a whole new way.

Good things come from courage like that.

Courage.

Courage is the linchpin here to keep the wheel from slipping off and letting us sit. It takes courage to admit failure, and courage to go back and find the right road. It takes courage to be honest, and courage to be vulnerable. It takes courage to face down fears. It takes courage to rest if we need it.

I can’t know your path, or even your fears to their full depth. The measure of your fear is something for you to press into. I can only say to be of good courage, and ask for the truth, keeping in mind these words of Jesus:

for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light

Don’t sacrifice yourself to heavy, joyless burdens. Find love and it will show you a place of joyful sacrifice. It’s the way of Jesus. Your race does not come with an impossible weight to carry, even if the way gets steep and hard. That price has been paid.

We have an ultimate race to run, but it is a long race and there is no map. There are days and nights. There is rest and work. There is weeping and laughter. The landscape is going to change. The hard is going to change, but the joy doesn’t have to. When we find the place where sacrifice and love meet, we have found a sweet place.

When self calls us into our work it is a heavy, heavy thing, but when Jesus calls us into our work through his demonstration of love to us, we find in ourselves a joy of sacrifice — a place to lay down our lives for love.

There will be joy. There will be hope.

Run your race. I’ll run mine. Sometimes we’ll run together.

Entering 2021…

Sometimes I go back to read Job 38-42 to remind myself that my worst mistakes, sufferings and hard years are not removed from God’s love. Nothing can do that. Nothing can keep me from running my race if I do it inside love, because not even fear itself can stand against redemption. Redemption always wins because the Son of God has taken back the keys so that not even the gates of hell, should we brought there, can prevail.

We don’t know that 2021 will be any better, and it would be cruel to raise that expectation of an expiration date on our current troubles. What we do know, is that all trouble has an expiration date. History has been given many hard times, and they have always been brought to an end by the hand of a Redeemer and the faithful ones who are willing to run through the hardships and take courage.

“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Come". He says.

I sink because my eyes are on the waves. “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught me.

“You of little faith, why do you doubt?”

And when I climb into the boat, the wind dies down. Then those us who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

—Matthew 14:27-32, paraphrase my own

We all have to step out into impossible places. Water is not something we walk on, and on our strength, fear isn’t either. But, perfect love catches us. For God’s everlasting patience and kindness with my racing heart I thank God. And I too, worship.

2021, ready or not, here I come.

L. Raine

P.S. Parting practical word of advice: consider the SE Apple Watch. It does most of what you need it to do without the steep price tag. If you click the link and buy on Amazon (even just gum, but who buys gum there?) I may be compensated for it.

Photo up top by Charles Koh.