Several years ago I was among a group of ten women headed to Central Asia on a mission trip. With stringent weight and size limits for our bags internationally and within the country, we could not simply bring an extra suitcase for the materials and gifts for the conference attendees. If one person packed it all, she wouldn’t be able to carry her own stuff, so we distributed the weight among us and reached our destination with the gifts and plenty of personal belongings.
Delegating and empowering others to share the weight of ministry is even more crucial. If we value our goals, we need a team to make them a reality. If we take on the entire burden alone, the amount of personal sacrifice may be too great to the health of our souls and/or our families. Sharing the load with others means we each give up something, but we achieve our goals in a manageable way.
If you are like me, there are clues all around you screaming that you need help, but you mostly ignore them because you have to change something and don’t want to or feel that you don’t have time to fix it.
This is what screams to me:
- I have little patience with others and their weaknesses.
- My husband is in a bad mood for days or weeks, but he seems to think that it’s me.
- I don’t sleep well and wake up with my to-do list on my mind.
- I pray only in short, quick spurts with little concern for my relationship with God.
- My prayers are mostly about my to-do list—or God’s to-do list for my to-do list!
- My responsibilities encroach on time with family or my solitude and silence.
- i can’t find stuff that is there. Usually my husband ends up finding it pretty easily. Several times I have been convinced someone came in the house and took whatever it was—never taking anything else.
- I feel stressed, tense, worried, on edge—whatever you want to call it.
- I find myself wondering if anyone appreciates all the work I am doing.
- I guess you could sum up a lot of it by saying that my life becomes focused on me, although I would say at the time that it’s focused on the ministry.
If you identify with my list in any way, it may be worthwhile to take some real time to consider your own list. In the end these are simply ways that the Spirit of God is speaking in a still small voice to our hearts to draw closer to him and give up control of everything by delegating.
In my next post, I share some of the things I have learned about delegating that may help you.
