After finding himself relying on his own strength and being task-oriented in his service, a writer re-discovers measures to keep his heart in check.
Lemuel Teo
“Okay, let’s get started, shall we?” I said, feeling flustered.
I had just arrived at the ministry leaders’ meeting, and was raring to get started with the agenda.
It was a busy period and I had many things on my mind—a list of tasks, people to follow up with, issues to handle. I simply wanted to tick off the objectives of this meeting so that I could move on to other things.
Then someone in the room said, “Let’s start with a time of prayer for each of our ministry members. I believe God wants to speak to us about them.”
Outwardly, I didn’t respond to the suggestion, but inwardly I was rolling my eyes. Can’t we just get past this time of prayer and begin the meeting proper?
That was when the Holy Spirit convicted my heart, revealing how self-reliant I could be. In my rush to get things done, I had forgotten that Jesus might have handled the situation very differently.
I had not abided in Him. Instead, I had desperately tried to solve my problems with my own strength. In that moment of clarity, I saw myself for who I really was on the inside.
Stunned by my own callousness, I paused. I had to realign my heart with God’s—and this meant taking the time to pray for our ministries’ members. We went on listening to God and praying to Him for them.
For many Singaporeans, this sense of busyness may feel familiar.
We focus on the things that need to be done and the problems that need to be remedied. We strive to extract maximum productivity from every working minute.
Some of us are gunning for a promotion. Some of us don’t want to have to work overtime yet again. Some of us need to juggle between commitments at work and in church.
“Crazy busy” is status quo for so many of us.
Faced with a deluge of problems and responsibilities, do we end up relying more on our own experience than on discerning God’s approach to them, be it at work or in church?
I’ve been there. It’s too easy to get caught up with the clinical execution of tasks, forgetting about the things that really matter: impacting our spheres of influence for the better, and helping the world see that God is real in our lives.
We can do this by understanding God’s heart, through prioritising rest and prayer, and through cultivating relationships.
My experience at the ministry leaders’ meeting reminded me of something Jesus once said to His disciples.
In Mark 6:7–13, the Lord sent the 12 of them out to villages to preach the gospel, cast out demons, and heal the sick.
When they returned, they told Him about all the things they had done and taught. They had been so busy that they didn’t even have time to eat!
At once, Jesus said, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (v. 31). Deep inside, we too know that we need rest to extricate ourselves from the frenetic pace of life.
God set the example by resting from His work of creation on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2). He would further command the Israelites in Exodus 34:21, “Six days you shall labour, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the ploughing season and harvest you must rest.”
In other words, God wanted His people to rest at regular intervals, even when they had urgent and important work to do that concerned their livelihood and survival.
Prayer goes with rest, and prayer and rest must take priority over getting things done.
While this may be an affront to task-oriented people, including myself, I believe it is the model Jesus set for us. He “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16). On another occasion, before choosing His 12 disciples, He “spent the night praying to God” (6:12).
Honestly, to me, prayer at such length feels counterintuitive. I’d rather pray a one-liner at best and get on with the work.
Yet prayer is what helps us get up close to God’s heart and mind, and makes us ready to receive what He has to say.
God gives us wisdom when we pray. Through prayer, God prompted me with insightful questions, helping me to improve my relationship with a fellow church member. Through prayer, He also reframed how I saw a bad situation, helping me feel less angry about it.
If more of us took the time to rest and pray, we might be less frantic and more effective, and perhaps many parts of our society would be transformed for good.
Our attitude would make us stand out, just like the Israelites stood out by observing the Sabbath regardless of the seasons. By departing from secular wisdom, they were displayed their radical trust in God’s provision.
Self-reliance is a symptom of a lack of trust in God. May we learn to genuinely trust God, as we take time to rest from our fast-paced lives, and as we pray and conform our will to God’s.
Alongside the disciplines of prayer and rest, we can also cultivate deeper relationships with those around us.
God is relational, and He designed us to be in community with fellow believers.
But this will require time, attention, and an investment of love.
A look through my WhatsApp exchanges with several of my church mates made me reassess these relationships in church.
Words were exchanged, but our relationships weren’t being strengthened.
It dawned on me that outside of church, I knew next to nothing about these friends. I didn’t know how many siblings they had, or how they had come to know Christ as their Saviour and Lord.
I’ve since learnt that our interactions in church cannot be impersonal and solely fixated on the tasks at hand. Instead, we should get to know one another beneath surface appearances.
I resolved to get to know these friends better. Whenever someone raised an issue they were facing, for instance, I would listen closely as they gave the background to their story, which helped me pray for them with greater understanding of their situation.
The Jerusalem church at its inception had a radical way of breaking down personal barriers. They “had everything in common [and gave] to anyone who had need” (Acts 2:44–45).
The churches founded by the apostles in other cities also collected supplies for relief, and shared their resources among themselves, “everyone giving as much as they could” (11:29 NLT). These churches yielded their help to one another in times of struggle and rallied together in acts of practical support.
We, too, need a group of like-minded people journeying alongside us in order to thrive over the long haul, as we serve God and His people.
Paul wrote, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
How can we “carry each other’s burdens” if we don’t take the time to cultivate relationships with our siblings in Christ, choosing to immerse ourselves in the intricacies of work instead?
When we feel overwhelmed by busyness in our work or areas of service in church, let’s pay attention to the lessons Scripture teaches us about rest and prayer, and about relationships.
If our hearts have been hardened against our need for God’s grace, or if we have been negligent in our relationships in the pursuit of productivity, Jesus’ words beckon us:
This was first published on selah.sg and adapted with permission.
Lemuel loves Hainanese chicken rice, especially the roasted variety. Cycling along the eastern coast of Singapore while watching the sun set rejuvenates his soul. He is dedicated to restoring and building lives to be godly pillars of strength in their communities.
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