Sometimes in ministry, we try to do too much. We carry too much weight, but all that extra weight only slows you down and gets in the way of the ministry that God wants to do through you.

Recently, I went backpacking with my son and some friends from church. We where up on Mount St. Helens camping next to Upper Sheep Canyon Falls. It’s become an annual tradition where every summer we spend two or three nights in the middle of nowhere experiencing God’s amazing creation. Now, when you’re backpacking, you wanna travel light. You don’t wanna carry anything that’s not absolutely necessary for surviving in the wilderness.

My goal is a 32 pound pack for two nights, but of course I always go way over that. On this trip I left home with a 42 pound pack, partly because I need more food and stove fuel for three nights, but mostly because I just brought too much stuff, like my chair. The first year the guys went backpacking about 15 years ago, I hauled 57 pounds up the side of a mountain. I brought a hatchet, a giant cooking pot, and a full lawn chair, which was like eight pounds by itself. I know, it was stupid.

But man was it nice to have at camp. And every time I got up someone would sit in it, but I’m like, dude, I carried that up here, get out of my chair.

But then I had to lug it back. It was a literal pain. Well, I’ve experienced something similar in ministry. There’s only 168 hours in a week, and you can only do so much during that time. And when I’m deeply connected with God, I find that it’s clear what he wants me to do with my time, and more importantly, how to do the work that he puts before me. But without fail, I start thinking about other things that I want to do with my time. Often these are good things. But as Oswald Chambers said,

Good is always the enemy of the best. He said, the greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. If my goal is to hike far and fast, bringing a chair may be good, but it’s not gonna help me accomplish my goal of hiking far and fast. If my goal is to help my church connect with the community to serve them better, than planning a game night and only inviting church members may be good. But that doesn’t help me move toward my ministry goal.

Now we know that posting ministry videos on social media is a really effective way of connecting with today’s young adults. If my goal is to reach young adults, but because of all the other good things that I’m doing, I don’t have time to regularly post videos on social media, those other good things are actually preventing me from reaching my ministry goal. The good is always the enemy of the best.

The author of Hebrews wrote, “Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up”. Notice that he says, especially. There are other weights that slow us down, not just sin, and we need to set those aside as well. And then he wrote, “let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.” And how do we do this? We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus. There are so many good things that you can do with your time, but keep your eyes on Jesus and let him guide you to the best, then keep that goal in front of you and lay aside everything else.

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Pastor, one of the hardest parts of your job is all the expectations that people put on you. And when you don’t do what people expect, sometimes they criticize, which can feel overwhelming when you dwell on it. But keep your eyes on Jesus, not on the negativity of a few of your members. Set those negative voices aside. Don’t carry that burden.

Listen to the people that God is putting your life that speak words of affirmation and do the work that God puts before you and he will carry you through. I love you guys.

I’m cheering for you!