And yet, and yet…

If you know me, you know that my mind is usually running on 5 different rails with various tasks popping up at different times. It’s both the blessing and the curse of an Executive Pastor that every day has variety and responsibility. As part of my survival, I rely on a whiteboard that I keep in my office that I regiment my days with. The board tells me when I have meetings, what devotional direction to go for the day, who is scheduled for baptisms, what major events I have coming up, what long range plans are progressing, what I need to do at home, the weddings and funerals I have coming up, even what I’m currently reading. In fact, I’m so connected to my board that if I did a task that wasn’t on there, I would add it and check it off (for the moral victory!). For the past 7 years, that board has been my compass, my timekeeper, my faithful sidekick in ministry.

This week I erased that board.

There were parts of it that were easy to eliminate, with the eraser swooping away times and meetings. Other parts like the dates and the deeper plans took a bit more scrubbing. Others, like the long range plans took a special glass cleaner to remove. And lastly the schematic, the days, the skeleton of organization, I had to scrub with the chemical to remove the last traces.

At the end, it was all gone. A white board just as I started it.

This week I started a sabbatical. For the first time in my 14 years in Austin (and for the first time in 20 years of ministry), I will be off for more than 7 consecutive days. And on top of that, during the time off I will not be checking emails, planning future events, keeping trace of what responsibility lies crouching at my office door. It’s a weird feeling.

Many have asked what I am doing for this vacation. The reality is that for a workaholic like myself, this isn’t a mere cessation of activity. It is a breaking, it is a tectonic shift in my expectations. It is a lightning bolt to my sense of self and my value. I have always, always looked to my value as the product of my work. My worth comes from the things I make, the influence I share, the achievements I conquer. I take pride in what I build up. I sweat and bleed and cry for the building up of my church, to see people redeemed and made full in Christ. When introducing myself, I start with “I’m a pastor.”

And now my board is empty.

In that seemingly infinite white space, where will I now find my value? How can I look with productivity on areas that no longer contain my etchings? If I don’t have my work, do I matter any more?

Here is the real center, the real core of my time on sabbatical: a return my focus to the heartbeat of grace that has always been at the center of the rhythms of my life. That grace has always been there, the electricity that drives my mind and heart, and yet I’ve covered it with the varied markings of life and expectations. Christ has continued to abide in me, even if I’ve ignored him grabbing my keys as I walk out the door.

No, this season will be a time of sitting down by the fire to chat with Jesus. It will be a time to connect with my family. It will be a time to cut away at all of the entangling vines of ambition and responsibility that have consumed so much of my capacity, and to breathe the air as a child of God, one whose value and worth are found in him. It will be a time to grieve the time past, the hundreds of hard conversations, the hours upon hours of strenuous labor and care, the Covid years (ugh, probably will just throw that pain in the trash…lol). And yet, it will be a time to celebrate the hundreds of baptisms and dozens of marriages I’ve been a part of, to praise the Lord for the lives he has privileged me to help redeem. It will be a time to dream of what’s yet to come, as my children grow into the people God has called them to be, to dream of what the Lord will grow with me and my wife, to dream of a future enthralled by Christ’s grace. I will still write and produce some things, but not from compulsion. I have the privilege of producing from joy.

So while my heart skipped a beat as I erased my whiteboard, and as I pierce the heart of the workaholic in me, I am so glad for days to focus on abiding in Christ. There will be future etchings and busy days, but in the meantime

I’m so glad that Christ loves me.

And that is enough.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5