Yes, pastors can be busy. There are moments in our ministries where the number of emails, questions, tasks, todos, issues, ideas, complaints, suggestions, visitors, interruptions, zoom calls, classes, conversations, voicemails, books to read, Presbytery committees, Session, Diaconate, receipts, and ... prayer devotionals seem like they will never stop. They come at us faster than we can respond wisely or swat them away.
I didn't know this when I became a pastor. I assumed being a pastor would be like other professions. I assumed the volume of incoming I felt as a new pastor would be like an engineer, or marketing professional, or sales executive. The inflow would increase then stabilize and over time I would get better, more efficient at handling the max volume and I would find more space around or beyond the tasks. Other pastors with more wisdom and experience finally told me, nope. This profession doesn't seem to work like that. This profession finds your level of comfort or ability and then pulls you over that line into the humble space of discomfort and incompetence. A pastor has to become okay never being enough by output standards, and has to find reassurances they are always and already enough by identity standards.
Today, as you pray, ask yourself, are you enough? Are you? Ask God, am I enough? Your mind and heart might be tempted to think about some things you could have done, or could have done better. You might imagine some things you should do, or should not have done. Those are tasks, outputs. Let those fall away. In today's prayer, return to the core question. Am I enough, just as I am, no matter what I've done or not done, no matter what I do or leave undone? Am I enough, God?
Stay right there until the only answer you hear from God and yourself is YES. You are enough. You are loved. You are enough.
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