Hello
Emmanuel,
No
need to beat around the bush: I’m
frustrated. I wish I could point to just
one thing, but that would be too easy.
If it was just one thing, then I can either fix the problem or focus on
something different that is good and right.
A half a dozen things hit me even before I left the house this morning
and none of them good. Ever feel like a
day is simply going to be a no-win proposition?
As
I type this, I don’t even know if you are going to get it (unless you read this
via the facebook link to blogspot.com).
The google email is down for anyone that has Emmanuel-umc email. I evidently cannot send or receive
emails. For anyone that knows me, that
is a huge issue in how I make contacts and keep church stuff moving. Now I feel like I’m in a boat in the middle
of the ocean with no motor, let alone an oar.
So
how do you cope when you have such days?
Here are some ways I cope, in no particular order. Warning:
these methods are not necessarily constructive. Don’t copy what the Pastor does:
1. When I get these kinds of days, my mind
regresses to a place of survival. In
other words, I think about the stuff I have to get done and figure out a way to
cope the best I can. For example, I
think about going old-school and actually using a phone. It slows down how many contacts I can make,
but again it’s about survival. I can’t
imagine how long it would take for me to read my Monday Morning Pulpit to all
of you, one at a time (though maybe a conference call is in order?).
2. What I also do is get things in
perspective. I try to see my work as
just work and not the life and death of the existence of Creation. I look at the big picture and try to be thankful
that my ups and downs don’t really have a major impact on functioning of the
Universe. If I can minimize my
importance, I won’t get so stressed out about my failings. But this coping mechanism isn’t really
constructive. It leads to low self-esteem…..
something I don’t like to revisit.
3. I
get dangerously sarcastic (as opposed to my normal
irritating-but-perhaps-a-bit-humorous sarcasm).
Some would define it as grumpiness.
My wife has another word for it, but this is a ‘church document’. However, if you have some time, look up
Numbers 22:24-31. Sometimes people can
be worse than a talking.. uh.. donkey (NIV version is nicer). I’ve preached it before. I may again.
I
think I’ll stop my own personal list there.
The rest is reserved for my counselor.
Now let me share with you what actually works for me without dragging
people down with me.
4. You can only control what you can control. The reality is that you can control very
little. You can control what you say and
what you do. You can control how you
react to the uncontrollable things around you, including the many things you
don’t know or understand (like Google email).
The rest is either up to other people or up to God.
Now
you might say, ‘that’s it? That’s all
you got, Pastor Joe?’ But what it
reminds me is what God calls us to be and do.
God calls us to love when and where we can. That’s all.
There isn’t anything more in life that God wants us to do. It’s really simple. To think that we have the responsibility or
Calling to do more is to make life more complicated than God intended. Making life more complicated is what many of
us are really good at.
So
hopefully you receive this document someday.
If not, maybe I will have the opportunity to love you at a different
place and time. If not, I will do what I
can for whenever I cross paths with someone else. I invite you to do the same. Why?
Because it’s really so simple.
God
is Good (but Google isn’t)
Pastor
Joe
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