saying yes to the right things first

I think it's safe to say that I have had a tough last couple of weeks. Long hours, some battles, some failures, some obstacles, late nights, early mornings, low resources, high demands. Kind of a perfect storm.

Some of it was my own fault for saying "yes" to too many things. Some of it was circumstances that were unplanned yet had to be accounted for by my attention, decision, production, or some other personal resource. Regardless, it was a hard two week push that culminated with a weekend service at which I had to both produce and preach.

I started to lose grip on reality a little bit. It was that kind of push. It was that kind of low.

And I suffered, as did my message. But God was faithful, used it anyways, and rescued me from where I had found myself.

I was debriefing about this with my team today. Here's what we concluded:

1. All of us have the talent and capacity to "lead on empty." Meaning: we can still produce a "killer" service out of the talent that God has given us, and, if necessary, disproportionate to the vitality of our own souls before God.

2. We are able to do this because, quite frankly, the demands have not gotten so great that we are able to meet them only by the power of God.

3. Very soon in the near future, the demands will be so great that the only way that we will be able to meet them is with God's power flowing through us.

4. If we continue to try to lead on empty, we will be crushed by the demands on us.

5. Regardless of the demands: why would we want to live by our own power and not God's in us?

One conclusion we came to was the need to say "yes" to the right things first, before we say yes to anything else. Yes to God, yes to time with him, yes to family and loved ones... and then yes to everything else. Not the other way around.