Exhausted Leader

The days are whizzing by and it can feel like wheels are spinning constantly. I’ve thought it and I’ve heard it processed – the idea that the mission we come with feels so far. Especially for a leader, who quickly moves from being mobilized to being the mobilizer. What happened to those dust covered feet, and how many homes have you passed by this week?

There is paperwork to attempt to understand in another language and then there is the time to find said paperwork. The coffee just ran out and the car is already being used – a market trip needs arranged and the money needs grabbed. Speaking of money – there’s a bank trip that needs to happen and it’s post-holiday, so an hour minimum can be expected sitting in a stagnant line (and this is the “express lane”). It starts to bog down – and it feels like none of it is important or building anyways. That‘s the worst part. Leaders – you feel me? Have you been here? Are you there now?

Isaiah 55

In said bank line, I pulled out my bible (not because I am spiritual, but because phones are not allowed once you walk in the door, and I knew it was going to be a long wait). And there my book falls open to the middle, to a book it doesn’t take long to find out is dear to me. It’s Isaiah. Flipped open right to chapter 55, I start reading. Here I go, a big sigh and the thought, “What do you have for me? What in the world can refresh me in the middle of this?”

And then:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

            Come to the waters;

            And you who have no money,

            Come, buy and eat!

            Come, buy wine and milk

            Without money and without cost…..”

This is only verse one, and the richness only builds. And there is the breath of air into me. There is more refreshment than I could handle as my eyes were tempted to pull up with water in that line, in very close quarters with business men watching me on either side of my waiting spot. Not only do I have deep, living waters to drink from….but this. This invitation. The same one that God chose to close the story with (Revelation ends with verse 17 proclaiming “Come!”), the one that is the fire in my bones when I remember just what the hustle is all about.

Replenished With Promise

I will stand in 100 bank lines to extend this invitation and bring more in. I will delight in the process of paperwork, thinking of how every line represents a leader who has accepted the invitation and is both fighting to extend it and develop to do this to their highest capability. The gas in the car is less than a small detail in light of disciples being made, those who are learning to “eat what is good”. We have “the richest” of fare and we are here to get it to the people – and every detail represents people that were thirsty that will be no more.

I don’t know if you need to hear this, leader – but I know that I did. Praise God for letting me, a gentile, be a part of promises for water, milk, wine, and honey – me, with no money and the tendency to labor with no satisfying end.