The EMPTY Days

People look to me to be strong.  I get up everyday and have the responsibility of looking after my kids, all three of them.  Collectively they have the energy of a small army.  I too have responsibility to take care of and provide for my wife.  Fortunately she is pretty autonomous, but still I know those times in which I need to be there with her during her own trying times and painful moments of this journey. That is when I need to have something to give her.



Of course I am a pastor too.  People look for me to have it ALL together.  I come prepared each week to speak to the people I pastor having prepared a sermon, and pretty scrupulously about that.  Too, I meet with various people and am called upon to hear their struggles, their joys, their priorities, their perspectives and try to affirm, challenge, redirect, or otherwise.  But in it all, I am the one feeling the great weight of responsibility.  And people look to me, constantly, to have the strength to do this.

In it all I am ever filling up, so I have something to give.  And then some days I can't help but notice, no matter how much I had filled up, in preparation for the days, the weeks, the speaking, the meeting, the daily grind...I find myself EMPTY. 

I woke up today fatigued.  My first thought: "Don't get up, just try to sleep."  But sleep had escaped me last night anyway and I wasn't too confident that it was about to find me at that hour.  So I got up, but there was nothing.  No desire to get up...no desire to do anything.  Sorry for the raw revelation, but it is reality.  In my emptiness I let the tears speak because words were not in me. 

And so I have been moseying about my day today running on fumes.  Most of my current emptiness is a result of the ongoing grind of all the weight I feel mentioned above.  Some of it is justified.  It is no simple thing being a father, husband, pastor.  But too, it comes with the territory and I am not surprised, nor would I expect it otherwise.  And I know too some of it is in relation to what I wish I did, wish I did better, wish I didn't do (between boldness, vision, priorities, and sometimes a rather distracted mind that keeps me from the best things).  Then of course there is yet another area in which I know I get rather empty.  It comes from unrealistic expectations I have, or pressures I place on myself that nobody else expects of me, including God.  I have been trying to filter all that out, but emptiness makes me rather vulnerable to this. 

There is yet another area in which I find the emptying taking place.  It is a result of the uncontrolled variables all around me.  And today, yet another poked its head my way.  My wife notified me this morning of the insubordination of our five year old son.  Quickly I found my mind rather overwhelmed as to how we get him in line.  We discussed that briefly, all of which again only exposed my emptiness to have what the matter required.  Then about an hour later my wife phoned to notify me the van was acting up.  A bunch of the dashboard lights were on and it was riding in a rather "jerky" motion.  I am no car expert, my mind and my hands are EMPTY of skills for such.  We proceeded to drop it off at the mechanics.  Since finding out the extent of the problem (transmission), my bank account proves it is EMPTY in regards to mending the problem.

So here I am: EMPTY.  I once again lack what it takes.  Fitting too that just on Sunday I preached about inadequacy and suffering.  I reminded those I shepherd that we are to have JOY in our suffering for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are: 1) God is working in us, 2) God is drawing us closer to Him, 3) Our message of Christ becomes amplified through suffering joyfully.

In my emptiness it is again a great reminder I do not have what I need.  I am ever brought back to this reality.  But I do know the One who has what I need.  And however He might decide and then reveal how He wills to mend what is broken,  tweak what is out of line, or empower what is powerless, I know He will, in His timing.  I labor to take comfort today in knowing Him.  And I know I will ever becomforted knowing it is the EMPTY He seeks to fill. 

So come LORD JESUS and fill me, your servant is more notably empty today than most days.