Holidays??

I'm looking forward to having a break over Christmas. While this may seem a pretty straight forward statement, for me this will be the first real holiday I'll be having since January this year. I had a Week off after the Open Home, Open Year Celebration, but I was so emotionally, physically and spiritually drained, you could hardly call it a holiday. I'm having three weeks of annual leave, because one of the stat holidays (27th DEC falls on one of my work days, I'm also having one stat up my sleeve) I'll be back in the office on either the 17th of Jan or the 19th, if I claim the stat on that Tue.

I now realise why all through Bible college the lecturers and Pastors who I met emphasised again and again the importance of looking after yourself. "If you don't look after yourself, no-one else will!" So this Christmas break I'm not going to think about ministry stuff at all.

I'm starting to appreciate the value of keeping yourself fresh and excited about work. The only way I find I can do this is to plan and to focus on what I feel God has called me to. If I know in advance what I have on my plate, then I know how much energy I can afford to spend on it. This also means I don't feel guilty saying "No" to the damands of others.

"Learn to say 'NO,' It will be of more use to you then being able to read Latin." This is so true. If we cannot learn to say no, we only have ourselves to blame when it all starts turning brown and pear shapped around us.

"Lack of planning on your behalf, does not not justify an emergency on my behalf!" is also something I have picked up very early in ministry. I once learnt the value of "...not taking others monkey's on your back..." when it came to looking after yourself. This means that in a situation where someone comes to you with a problem, you do all within your power to help them, but you don't allow them to unload the problem onto yourself. This relieves responsibility from the offender and creates unneccessary stress upon yourself.

All this said, I believe God has given me gifts and abilities and he expects me to use them. I'm looking forward to next year when I come back to work, I'll be the only one in the office so I'm looking forward to spending a couple of days looking, dreaming and praying over the year and taking the opportunity to focus on the role I've been called here to Opawa to fulfil.

I love Opawa Baptist and I thank God every day that He has called me to such a 'life filled' church.