I describe our household of two adults, five children, two cats, and one dog as very busy. Add working as a substitute teacher and general chaos that life brings, and it becomes a veritable circus. I like to say that, just as a circus contains a continual and overwhelming amount of movement and distractions while maintaining a tight schedule and an organized reason for all performances, so goes our household. Maybe you don’t see the organization, but it’s there…somewhere…
Then there is full-time ministry. I don’t know about you, but as a pastor’s wife, I move seamlessly through the seasons of my church. I plan the showers, organize the Christmas plays, attend (or teach) the Bible studies, help with crisis counseling, host the dinners, fill-in for children’s church, keep our kids busy when daddy has to stay late to have a meeting, and so on. It’s a lot of good bits and a lot of hard pieces.
All this to say, I’M TIRED! However, this is not a particular statement to me. All of us have seasons of absolute exhaustion. We trudge through the haze of our busyness and desperate attempts to keep up with it all, and in the midst we begin longing for refreshment. We want calm, peace, rest. And surely, as our minds are apt to do, we begin to imagine the perfect scenario of refreshment. Everyone has one. They are all different, but we all have them. I’d love a quiet mountain vacation with a large stack of books, free from intense crisis counseling sessions and a full calendar. However, the opportunity for rest isn’t now, and thus I have a choice. Will I continue to stumble through the exhaustion or find the refreshment in the now?
I’m not here to talk about how we are just to bulldoze through that exhaustion or pretend it doesn’t exist as we slowly lose our minds through lack of rest. No, I simply want to talk to you today as a woman whose heart God is molding and changing to think differently on the idea of refreshment and comfort. You see, I’m going to argue today that refreshment has less to do with me and my needs and everything to do with God and His glory.
The world around us disagrees though. In their view, refreshment is all about how I feel about me. How many of you have heard the phrases: “You deserve it.”, “Treat yourself!”, “I just have to focus on myself right now.”, “I need some self-care.” Ladies, what concerns me most of all is that these phrases are seeping into our churches.
Please don’t get me wrong. God directly commands and advises rest in our lives. I feel it is truly the best way to serve Him when we are rested and renewed. And yes, we are valuable, special creations of God; but I just don’t see how we can take those truths and distort them in such a way that it becomes all about us.
God has been teaching me much on this idea of refreshment. Particularly in the past several months. I’ve truly been running on empty. But it’s in those moments that we are empty and weak that God fills us with His own strength and guides our hearts in the most beautiful ways through the truth found in His Word. Philemon 4-7 has been the driving force behind His lesson for me in this season.
Let’s look at it together.
“I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”
Is this love taking place toward Paul? He possibly felt loved by Philemon. After all, he was a good friend. However, the object of this love is toward another group of people–the body of Christ that Philemon belonged to.
Yet, Paul still finds comfort, joy, and peace. He finds his own refreshment because of the love and refreshment being given to others. And this brings us to the point. Paul derived his joy and his comfort from the actions done by someone else for someone else.
We often like to shoo away the actions of Paul as almost a superiority of holiness, as though these are actions only someone with his spiritual maturity could handle. Yet, in doing so we quickly forget the many times he mentions his struggles, his hardships, his frustration with his sinful heart. And, good grief, he was in prison! I doubt he felt happy-go-lucky about the whole situation. No, the difference comes first in his obedience to his call as part of the body of Christ and second in his recognition of his duty to celebrate the glory of God.
However, before we can look at those two very important differences in the pursuit of refreshment and comfort, we have to first understand something that Paul specifically spoke to us about in the book of Romans.
Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
This passage was written after an entire first half of the book dripping with deep theology. The second half of Romans then guides us into how this theology should change and affect our lives. And the very first statement he makes about how we live focuses on a choice of our minds. We must choose a change of thought which will, in turn, bring a change of action. Each and every action, even those actions seeking refreshment and comfort should come from a mind renewed; a mind choosing to focus on the truth of our God instead of the calls of the world.
This is not easy. It requires rejecting some of our natural human desires. I want my house clean, and I want it NOW. I “need” the beach. I want just two hours to myself. (Again, I do not speak against rest or careful planning for refreshment, but against the idea that it can only come one way or no way at all.)
Now that we have discussed that very important first step of renewal of the mind, let’s discuss those two points of obedience we touched on earlier.
- Obedience to our call as the Body of Christ
- Celebration of God’s glory.
First, our call as the Body. How did Paul see others’ refreshment as a comfort to himself? How could we see this same thing in our own lives? Wouldn’t it be lovely to receive that kind of joy through another’s experience? But instead, if you are anything like me, that false friend “jealousy” seeps into our minds. We begin to despise the attention and satisfaction another gets in the Body for their talent or hard work. Maybe they post their vacation (YOUR dream vacation) on Instagram or Facebook for the world to see. That lady has had a vacation every three months for the last two years. I haven’t had one for three years! Maybe we see friendships forming between other women and it pricks our heart in the most subtle way—”Why not me?” But in allowing jealousy we miss the whole point of the Body. Let’s look at how God placed us together.
First, we see acceptance of others’ lives as part of our own:
Philippians 2:2-7 “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 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 also to the interests of others.”
Next, we see the command to love well. We all know 1 Corinthians 13! Love each other well! Love each other actively! Remember what Paul told Philemon? He loved seeing him love others well!
Last, we must be willing to love and refresh each other through our own lives. 2 Corinthians 1 tells us that our story is not our own. We are to reflect God’s work in our lives, and then we are to follow Hebrews 10:24 in considering ways
“we can stir one another up”.
Ladies, being a pastor’s wife is hard. We carry the burdens of our families, our husbands, our ministries, and normal life. We work and help out in ways that are seldom noticed and often leave us feeling lonely, left out, and frustrated. We long for refreshment, for joy, for someone just to see what we are trying to do and how hard it is for us to do it. Yet, we forget that God has amply supplied those places to share—right within the body of Christ. May I stop and encourage you as women to fulfill these Scriptures we just read through and to bear one another’s burdens well. Find the joy and refreshment that can come through the lives of one other.
This idea of refreshment within the body of Christ is a beautiful picture. Yet, that is only part of the picture. Let’s go back to Philemon.
What drives Paul is not simply the horizontal relationship between he and his brother in Christ. What drives Paul is Christ. It his vertical focus that has allowed the renewal of his mind during this time in his life when personal refreshment would have been at a premium! It is all for Christ and God’s glory (2 Corinthians 1). Yes, we share with one another, but why? So that we can see the work of God!
Ladies, when we turn our eyes back to Jesus and purpose our faith toward Him, the perspective it brings is a powerful thing. Because it becomes about Him and His glory and less about me and my wants. The simple understanding that God is glorified and that He is at work within the Body brings so much joy. But it is a discipline. And not an easy one at that. I want to challenge you as I conclude, to take times of refreshment without guilt. Yet, in the times of exhaustion and no end in sight, take joy and comfort in the lives of your sisters in Christ and revel in God’s glory shown through it all.
