Do you receive the care of the Lord through Sabbath rest?
By / Oct 13

At the point in ministry where I googled “burnout,” Kyle and I were not taking weekly time to rest. For years, we consistently rejected God’s invitation to put work and ministry aside, slow down, and receive refreshment. It’s no wonder we were falling apart. When I look back at this time, I’m mortified at our pride in believing we could color outside God’s lines without consequence.

And yet, so many pastors and pastors’ wives I speak with think they are the exception to the rule when it comes to Sabbath rest. They feel guilty for taking time off, doing something fun, not answering the phone, taking a nap, or going on vacation. Some don’t even entertain the idea of time off because they feel (or perhaps want to believe?) they’re essential or irreplaceable within their church. Some don’t want to face imagined criticism from their congregants. Some wives are waiting for their husbands to take the lead in this area, and some husbands are being pushed by their wives to work harder or to “fix” the problems she sees in the church.

But what does God say? He doesn’t simply invite us to rest; he commands it. He indicates that life and ministry will go better for us and be more fruitful if we stop work and rest at regular, consistent intervals. There must be no guilt in obeying what God has commanded; guilt only indicates a false belief or idol. And even if someone in the church doesn’t fully understand, the example of saying no and observing a Sabbath rest is in itself a powerful sermon about first allegiance and being a biblical and healthy disciple of Jesus.

How we choose rest 

I’ll share with you what we do to receive God’s gracious gift of Sabbath rest, but it is in no way prescriptive. The way we rest has shifted according to our season of life, our children’s ages, and our work. We’ve experimented with Kyle taking different days of the week off and with what we do on those days until we’ve found a rhythm that works for us. Currently, we have three boys in school, so Kyle takes Fridays off. Fridays are sacred days in our home. He and I don’t do household chores, check email, answer our phones (although Kyle does check his caller ID, in case it’s an emergency), or cook. Instead, we often go out for breakfast, take a long walk together, read, and nap. Sometimes we drive to a nearby town and window shop or play tennis in our neighborhood.

When our children were younger, we’d switch off doing activities to recharge as individuals. He would take the kids for a long walk, giving me time in the house by myself, or I’d keep the kids at home while he’d go to a coffee shop to read a book unrelated to work. We’d also save up our credit card points so that once a year or so we could send each other off to the nearest big city for a stay in a hotel and a personal retreat.

It’s far more important, however, for you to consider how you rest or Sabbath than it is to consider how we do it. Your husband may be reluctant to take a day off because of the pressure he feels. How can you encourage him and help him rest?

When we first started making rhythm adjustments in our marriage and family, adding in Sabbath rest was the most uncomfortable change, because it meant letting work and ministry sit unfinished. That’s hard to do when you’ve been running at full speed for years. Common sense pushes us to finish the work and then rest, but in ministry, the work is never finished. We have to purposefully set it aside.

In addition to discomfort, I personally felt guilty on our Sabbath day. When I considered why, I recognized that I tend to idolize productivity and performance. These things aren’t bad, but when I take them to the extreme, I am acting from a belief that I know what I need better than God does. I act outside God-designed limits and set myself up for consequences later.

As Sabbath rest has become normal in our life, Friday has become our favorite day of the week. The Lord renews us, and we can see how God’s provision of rest has enabled us to endure and persevere in ministry. I no longer wonder if we’re going to make it in marriage and ministry, because we’ve carved out space to connect with God and one another.

Friend, are you receiving the care of the Lord through Sabbath rest? It is absolutely one of the best gifts he gives.

This article is an excerpt from Hoover’s new book, “How to Thrive as a Pastor’s Wife,” from Baker Books. 

5 ways to manage your summer expectations for vacation and rest
By / Jul 13

The hot summer sun and end of the school year makes everyone look forward to vacation. Finally, a time to rest, relax, and unwind after a crazy year. But for those of us traveling to see relatives, or heading to the beach on a vacation with extended family, rest and relaxation can be elusive. My friend, Brittany, a mom of two boys ages 2 and under, just posted a picture of her family at the beach with the caption, “’I feel so refreshed after my beach vacation with my young kids!’ said no one ever.” 

I remember those days of chasing my toddlers by the water, trying to keep them from ingesting a shovel full of sand. Depending on the ages of our kids, and the sheer number of other family members involved, vacations aren’t usually the oasis of calm we hope them to be. 

A few years ago our family joined my in-laws and sister-in-law’s family for a Christmas/retirement celebration in California. What better place to enjoy a break from our crazy schedule than in warm and sunny San Diego? We had hardly arrived before we realized there was trouble in paradise. My sister-in-law’s family was battling the stomach flu with three young kids. Add to the mix our four kids and sharing bathrooms, and you can imagine the result. 

My generous in-laws, who made the trip possible, were looking forward to non-stop family time together—family dinners, family bike rides, family games. They even thoughtfully volunteered to watch the grandkids one night so the parents could have a dinner out without cutting up someone else’s meat. But my husband and I were hoping for a little more space, and some time for our family to be able to explore the city without the entire crew of 13. 

All of us had expectations of what this trip should look like. The problem was, none of us communicated our expectations to each other. As I look back, I realize how much frustration could have been avoided if I had checked my own heart and been willing to communicate more openly. 

Here are a few simple things I’ve learned to help navigate expectations with summer vacations.

1. Be honest. Talk openly and honestly with other family members about your vacation hopes. So often each of us has an ideal vacation plan that we never fully communicate with anyone else. When our expectations are dashed, we can feel disappointed or embittered. Long before you’re all piling into the rental house with suitcase in hand, talk about how much time you’ll spend together. Can there be certain meals with the whole extended family and other meals on your own? Will there be a rotation of cooks to ensure the same people aren’t always in the kitchen? Talk about how much whole group time you’ll have together versus time as individual families. The more things you work out beforehand, the smoother things will go. 

2. Be flexible. Flexibility is defined as bending easily without breaking. The only constant in our life is God. Everything else will change. How can you be flexible with your hopes and expectations for vacation? How can you bend to accommodate your in-law’s menu preference, or the naptime schedule of your niece? We all come with a set of plans in mind, but hold them loosely, and remember the relationship is more important than the ideal plan. 

3. Be a peacemaker. When we enter a vacation holding our expectations loosely, it will help us to maintain peace. When we’re willing to give up our ideal plan of a quiet afternoon by the pool (without complaining) for your father-in-law’s plan of a family boating expedition, we are sacrificing for the good of someone else. We’re following the pattern of Christ, the ultimate peacemaker. “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:13-14). 

4. Be loving (respectful, sacrificial, considerate). We can love those we are with by accommodating their preferences with joy. This may mean you are eating Aunt Milly’s famous chili (again) when you’d rather have grilled fish. But we look for ways to lay down our rights in order to bridge the gap with the other person. We take the apostle Paul’s advice in Philippians 2:3-4, that we, “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others.” We’re following the way of Christ. 

5. Be servant-minded. Vacation conjures up pictures in my mind of laying in poolside chairs with food that’s magically prepared and delivered. But few of our family vacations actually look like this. Most of us still need to cook, keep an eye on children, and even do laundry. It would do us good to prepare our hearts to serve during vacation. Think of Jesus’ words and example, the perfect King who came to serve, not to be served  (Matt. 20:28). How can you practically love and serve those you are with? Can you unload the dishwasher in the morning? Make coffee for the group? Offer to keep an eye on a new mom’s baby so she can take a nap? Sometimes we forget that joy comes through serving. Ask God to help you keep a tender heart to those you are with, and for grace to serve them with love. 

Family vacations have the potential to be one of the best, most memorable times of the year. But they also have the potential to create division over petty squabbles and unmet expectations. As you load your minivan this summer, keep in mind that our call to love and serve applies during vacation as well. Christians are not exempt from loving and serving their family just because we’re on a special getaway. Hold your plans with an open hand, and ask God to give you unexpected joy and grace as you make lasting memories with those you love.

How do our limits reflect God’s design?
By / Mar 1

We live in an age that values productivity. There is an entire cottage industry of books and resources to help us manage our time, organize our lives, and squeeze every last second out of the day. As a proponent of time management processes (though not always the best adherent), I find these useful tools. However, in our pursuit of doing more, we are often saying with our lives a lie that we would likely never utter with our lips: “I am god, and I am unlimited.” 

However, as theologian and author Kelly Kapic reminds us in his new book, You’re Only Human, our limits and dependencies are a good gift from God, not the result of the brokenness of the world. He was kind enough to join us for an interview to discuss the reality of our limits, our need for rest and humility, and why we struggle to see all of this as an essential and good part of our nature as created image-bearers.  

Alex Ward: Our limitations and finitude are something that you say we often run into through our encounter with the harsher parts of reality — a child’s sickness, an overwhelmed schedule, the loss of a job late in life — rather than an idea and concept that we meditate on as a comfort. Why is it that so often it takes these harsh moments for us to realize our limits?

Kelly Kapic: None of us would call ourselves ‘god,’ but when we start to explore our deepest assumptions and how we approach life, what we often find betrays hidden beliefs: we assume we are or at least should be in control. And that is how we try to conduct our lives. Until there is a serious problem, we tend to assume the problem is something we can solve, and so we just try harder, get more organized, and then we assume the challenge can be overcome.  

But often it is only when things start to fall apart that we realize we can’t make everything all right. As the curtain is lifted, if we have the courage, we start to realize how little we were ‘in control of’ in the first place. And it is during those times we finally start to consider our finitude.

AW: Especially in our current American context where we can have almost anything easily and quickly, why are limits a good thing? How do they help us see God better and our relationship to him? 

KK: Limits are a good thing because God created human creatures, and to be a creature is, by design, to have limits. Finitude doesn’t necessarily imply talk about death: it is just a fancy term that means we are limited by space, time, knowledge, power, etc. In my book, when I am talking about ‘finitude,’ I am talking about these limits. We have a particular body, a particular brain, we come from this family and not that one, we live here and not there, we have these neighbors and not those. All of those particulars situate us, both opening up opportunities for us but also making claims on us, inevitably limiting us in various ways.  

One of my concerns is that Christians have too often confused finitude with sin, and so we start to believe we must overcome all our limits. We feel guilty about our limits, treating them like sins that should be resisted and overcome.  

Without realizing it, this confusion often breeds unhealthy guilt among God’s people when we constantly feel that we should be doing more. Do we allow ourselves to go to bed at night knowing that in our smallness God has been honored and that he delights in us even in our small world? Put differently, does faithfulness require that we sign up for every legitimate volunteer opportunity, or attend every meeting, or give to every noble cause?  

Here is the big surprise: God created us as finite, which means we are made to be dependent.  Healthy dependence or interdependence is part of the good of God’s creation, not the fall. What sin does is distort and undermine healthy dependence, but it did not create it. The fact that we think of the word ‘dependence’ in purely negative terms says a lot about us as a culture and as individuals.  

AW” It’s not uncommon for people to create new schedules or plans at the beginning of the year to try and squeeze more time out of their day, whether that’s because they want to read more, workout more, or just spend more time with family. So how should Christians approach these productivity hacks and attempts to redeem their time? Is it ultimately just a futile quest?

KK: Personally, I love ‘to-do’ lists and ‘time management’ suggestions, but I also think they are dangerously seductive. And I think we need to be asking a different set of questions.

I am arguing that ultimately we are not dealing with a time management problem, but with a theological one. We have misunderstood God, how he created the world, and what he expects of us. Until we deal with this underlying problem, we will always feel exhausted, defeated, guilty, and frustrated. Sadly, the Church often tries to deal with these feelings in the same way as the world, through better “time management.”  

Even the language of ‘managing time’ or ‘organizing time’ often gives us a false sense of control. We can make plans, but actually time is not something we can control or manage. It is not within our power. This is why we — including me — get so easily angry when our perfectly planned productive days go sideways. Part of what happened is we imagined we had more control than we actually did, and until we are more honest about how these assumptions affect us, we won’t address the anger, frustration, and despair that so easily starts to permeate our lives because we are not ‘getting everything done.’

Without launching into a much larger discussion here, I will just give one suggestion: be more realistic. I know, for example, that my ‘to-do’ list for Monday is really not a to-do list for the day but will likely take me a week. When I don’t realize that, it easily produces what one writer calls ‘productivity shame.’ We set ourselves up for failure.  

As Christians, we don’t need to feel guilty about our limits, but we need to have the courage to be more honest about them. And that includes how much time is required by the relationships that God puts into our lives. We can’t do everything, nor does God call us to.  

Similarly, we should ask, in this particular season of life and in this particular place with my particular gifts and limits, what does faithfulness look like for me here and now? Try to be honest with yourself. It will take courage to allow yourself to do less.  

When we add too many things to our schedule and we are driven by productivity as our highest good, then we end up with little margin. And experience tells me that love takes place in those margins. Therefore, as Christians we need to slow down in order that you can be present and able to really love others as God gives opportunity. A test case: love inevitably makes demands, so when opportunities to love arise in our days, do we find ourselves getting bitter and angry inside, or grateful for a chance to care for another person?

AW: We live in a society that prizes individuality and the ability to present the best version of yourself, whether in business or social media or just personal interactions. But you remind us that humility should be central to how Christians interact in the world. Why do we need a theology of humility, especially now?

KK: I believe humility is central to a Christian vision and life. But, as I discuss in the book, I worry that we have too often built our understanding of humility on the foundation of sin, on the idea that we should be humble because we are sinners. While I think our sin does add weight to the call for us to be humble, I don’t think that is a good foundation for humility. And when we build humility on this as the foundation, we shouldn’t be surprised when we get so many unhealthy views of humility.

But biblically, we should be humble simply because this is a realistic recognition that we are limited creatures. Humility is the joyful affirmation of reality, the reality that as creatures we were always made to be dependent upon God, others, and the Earth. Even if there were no sin and fall, humans were to be humble. Humility both fosters worship of our Creator God, and it liberates people to delight in others without always having to compete with them. Humility doesn’t just say “I’m sorry,” but “how should I do this?” and “what do you think?” At its best, humility comes out in sincere questions and gratitude, not self-loathing.

AW: One element of our finitude that seems to create such tension is how we relate to time and the demands of our life. You note a helpful distinction between stress and anxiety. Especially with all the recent studies and reports about the overwhelming sense of anxiety that have been produced by the pandemic and our isolation, how should we think about these concepts? How should we respond to stresses in our lives?

KK: That is a great question. Since I can’t unpack this like I do in the book, I will just say that I think anxiety is often a distorted relationship to time. And so in order to address some of the deeper problems, we have to explore things like expectations. As I explore in the chapter on this topic, I came to believe that the way to navigate this high level of stress and anxiety is through a renewed appreciation for the ancient Hebrew understanding of the “fear of the Lord.” I will just say here, I think at its root this points us to the idea of learning to recognize God’s presence in our lives and in his world. He is always present, but do we recognize him? And I would connect learning to be present with God with learning to be more present with others — and I strongly think one of the reasons we have a rise in anxiety is related to our inability to be truly present with each other, even when we are physically together.

AW: In previous generations, if I wanted to learn something it might have taken weeks or months to get the right books and go through the right coursework, whereas now I can just google an answer. Similarly, I might have needed weeks for a package to arrive and now can have it in a matter of hours if I’m close enough to an Amazon hub. How has this distorted our understanding of the progressive and long-term process of God’s work in our lives?

KK: I think what you describe above is real and it does affect us. And when you put into that situation a Christian who recognizes the sins and weaknesses in our lives, we end up with a potent question: why doesn’t God just instantly change us, since he doesn’t want us to sin?  Behind these questions and concerns is often our sense that God wants us to be perfect immediately. And yet even in the creation narrative, God takes his time. He values process.  One day to the next, things unfold, build upon each other, grow and develop. God has always been comfortable with process, and we need to rediscover the good of process. This can significantly transform our Christian lives and give us a renewed sense of hope and courage. It really is true, he who began a good work in us will continue it to completion. And if he is okay with not instantaneously completing his work in us, then we should not lose heart that our growth often takes time.  

AW: If I’m looking to develop this proper theology of my limits, what are some practical steps that I can take? What is a good place to start? What practices can I build into my life to help with that? 

KK: In the last chapter I suggest four perspectives that can help us return to a healthier relationship with our limits: rhythm, vulnerability, gratitude, and rest. Obviously it takes me a long chapter to unpack these four, but let me just give a sentence or two for each.  

We would do well to learn to honor different seasons of life and adjust our expectations about what faithfulness looks like as we live within the rhythm of each season of life as we go through it. Being 18 is different from being 58, and having a newborn is different from being an empty nester; appreciating the rhythm of decades, years, months, and days can give us a healthier view of opportunities and limits.   

Cultivating an awareness of our vulnerability (which in the book I explain is different from being ‘fragile’) can help us learn to appreciate the healthiness of our dependence upon God, neighbor, and the earth. This helps us grow more comfortable in our relationships, admitting our needs as well as being more ready to offer our gifts for the good of others.

I believe we need to learn both lament and gratitude as expressions of our experience of the world and of our dependence on God in it. We can’t control everything, and so when tragedy, pain, and suffering happen, we should lament. But we can also learn to be grateful, not for evil, but for God’s presence and care which are always active. Rather than pick between lament and gratitude, we need both, sometimes simultaneously. And when we practice them, I think we end up with a healthier relationship to our own finitude and to God.  

Finally, rest. It was fun to talk about a theology of sleep in the book, and why sleeping can be an act of faith. Simply put, we can sleep because God never does. That can be especially hard for us when anxiety swirls all around us. It’s hard for me. I also encourage us to rediscover the joy of a regular day of rest, which is set aside for worship, a different pace, and a release from doing our normal labor. It has become radically countercultural to set aside one day in seven for this kind of rest, but this is fundamental to how God made us. This is not about unthinking conformity to a legal code; instead, God uses our worship and rest to root us more deeply in human flourishing and to give us a vision for life much greater than an endless list of to-dos.

3 things the Bible says about work
By / Sep 6

Genesis 1 shows us that God created the world by working. After creating the world, God gave Adam and Eve the “Creation Mandate,” instructing Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion over it (Gen. 1:28). In this verse, God instituted work as a way for humans to care for creation and steward his gifts. 

Unfortunately, ever since the Fall, the relationship between people and work has been cursed and broken. One of the ways this is evident is in our view of work. Sin has led many of us to see work only as a means of self-fulfillment and individualism instead of a way to serve others. In his book Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller claims that this view of work “crushes people . . . and undermines society itself.” 

As Keller points out, we must look to the Bible to reacquire a biblical view of work. Since Scripture discusses work often, I will focus on three of the major things the Bible says about work.

The Bible says work is part of God’s design for his creation

One common perspective today is that work is a necessary evil. Many people work simply to pay bills while waiting for the weekend, and they despise their jobs. There has been a big push to make life as easy as possible and avoid work. And though much of work is hard, cursed by humanity’s sin (Gen. 3), Keller argues that an avoidance view of work is self-destructive and harmful to society. To move away from an individualistic view of work, we must see how God’s Word demonstrates his good plan for work. 

God’s extensive use of work throughout Genesis shows us that it is part of God’s design for creation. Throughout Genesis 1, God works to craft the universe and declares it “good,” indicating that it’s exactly as he desires. Since all of creation is a direct result of God’s work, we know work is an integral part of creation. Additionally, the Creation Mandate occurs before the Fall. Thus, the introduction of sin did not introduce work; instead, it has affected work with difficulty and fruitless labor. The mandate from God also shows that we are not created merely for leisure and time spent in idleness. Rather, humanity was made to work, cultivate, and create. 

Remembering that work was given to us by God so that we could enrich his creation and reflect his nature is a critical part of renewing our minds and recovering a biblical view of work.

A pattern of work and rest is essential for our well-being

While God created us to work and take care of creation, he also showed that rest is necessary for us to flourish as humans. After working to create the world over six days, God rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:1-3). Genesis 2:3 says, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in Creation.” God sets the example by taking a rest day after creation, though, unlike us, he does not grow tired and weary (Is. 40:28). And in Exodus 20, he the Israelites to take a day of rest. In verses 8-11, God draws from his examples in creation and establishes the Sabbath as a day of total rest, dedicated to him. 

While we were created to work, we still need time to rest, worship God, and trust in his provision. Resting can counter the tendency many of us have to tie our identities to our work. In a culture such as ours where productivity and busyness are often our ways of defining success, the scriptures continually remind us that we are finite and must rest. Even Christ in his earthly body slept (Mark 4:38). The rhythm of rest and work structures our life and keeps us between the extremes of laziness or idleness on the one hand and frenetic activity on the other. Most importantly, a set pattern of work and rest in our lives teaches us to rest in our God and his work on our behalf. 

Work is a way to serve your community and spread the gospel

The Bible also commands us to use our work to serve others (Matt. 23:11). And Christians have been commanded to share the gospel and make disciples throughout the world (Matt. 28:19-20). God has called each of us into specific careers and paths, and our jobs are where we spend most of our time interacting with our community. This means, as Andy Mills has argued, that if we have a biblical view of work, we should be doing our work to the best of our ability so that what we produce can serve others and represent Christ well (Col. 3:23). Focusing on serving others with our work, advancing the kingdom, and glorifying God (1 Cor. 10:31) can break us out of the self-serving mindset that sees work just as a means of self-fulfillment and enrichment.

The Bible is clear that work is a good part of God’s plan for creation. Through our work, we steward God’s creation and serve our neighbors. At the same time, we weren’t created to work nonstop. God has established a rhythm of work and rest that we might know he is the source of our provision and strength. We can fight the sinful tendencies to despise our work and to use it as a means of individualistic self-enrichment by embracing it as a gift from God. May he strengthen us to work hard for his kingdom and to rest in his care.

How to lead during difficult times
By / Feb 17

The world changed for me that night in March when NBA players were called off the court and the notifications on my phone started lighting up like a Christmas tree. Global pandemic, social distancing, mask-wearing, zoom-calling, toilet-paper ordering—what is this new reality I am facing, I wondered. As I entered into this Twilight Zone of leadership, managing seismic changes and making hundreds of new decisions, I felt the weight of it all on my shoulders. I’m sure every pastor and leader can relate. 

How do we remain healthy through times of heightened stress? While I certainly have not cracked the code on leading through difficult seasons, here are three things I’m learning.

  1. I need to listen to my body and get more rest.  

Recently, after two full days of meetings, I drove home with my friend, Migraine. He was not pleasant company. When I got home, I went to the bedroom, turned off the lights, and slept till the next morning. In this season of “make decisions, change decisions,” everything feels more pressurized, which adds weight to the soul and mind. I think wisdom calls us to look at our schedules and to realize it’s not sustainable to pack our days so full that we have no time for decompression. “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life” (Prov. 4:23). Be kind to yourself and go hit a round of golf, or grab a light lunch with a friend. 

In addition to taking more time to recharge your own soul, be sensitive also to the weight your wife is carrying. No pastor carries the water alone, and the burdens are felt in the pastor’s home also. If you can, schedule extra time with your spouse, to meet up for chips and queso, or to take a hike outdoors together. As Lynley and I have made time for more of this, we have felt more refreshed for the work of the ministry and less overwhelmed by the challenges. 

  1. I need to rip up the old scorecard.

Most leaders I know are living in perpetual frustration because their plans have been foiled time and time again since COVID-19 hit. It’s not that our dreams are expired, but the pandemic has caused everything to slow down dramatically. All the goal-setters out there are crabby, because the world changed overnight and the metrics shifted also. Packed out events, sold out conferences, rooms filled with infectious energy—none of these “outward signs” that church stuff is working have any real significance in the moment. 

When I tweeted that “God wants us to be faithful, not successful,” a few people took issue with the statement. I can understand why. “Isn’t faithfulness a success in and of itself?” one person asked. Of course it is. What I meant, however, is that the world’s measure of success is normally associated with bigger, bigger, bigger. In this season, pastors cannot participate in that old system of topping last year’s numbers and pushing line graphs up and to the right. Instead, ministry means organizing service projects, preaching to cameras and cold rooms, and making phone calls to that person who lost their job this week. These less glamorous tasks are the slow and steady work of the ministry and they matter greatly to God. 

  1. I need to pray like it all depends on God. 

Naturally, I work like it all depends on me, and always have. It’s a problem. Self-reliance is the easy part for driven personalities. Learning to wait, sit back, and to trust the Lord, with an ever deepening prayer life—that is the real treasure that arrives in times of uncertainty. 

Recently, I was searching the internet for a free image to use for preaching. As I did, I came across a picture of Jesus reaching down into the water, seeking to lift up a fully submerged Peter. It dawned on me that the Bible isn’t clear just how far Peter sank after he walked on water. Some artists show his ankles under the sea, some his waist, a few his shoulders. This was the first time I had ever considered that Jesus allowed Peter to plunge all the way down. It was a thought-provoking image. 

As the global pandemic rages on, many church leaders are feeling increasingly uncertain about the new normal in front of us. It started ankle deep, then waist, and has continued to rise. Anxiety grows as momentum plateaus. Breathe deep and believe that the doctrine of God’s sovereignty is good for the soul. He still has the whole world in his hands. And when this moment passes, Jesus will reward those who kept their eyes on him–no matter how deep the water. He may let us sink a little, but he will not let us drown.

Put your ministry back in his hands, and pray that the Lord will work his will in our hearts as we wait upon his wrist to break through the water.