With car batteries, if the battery is dead or low you have a couple of choices:
- You can jumpstart it - some tow trucks even have a "super charger" they can hook up that jolts it back to life
- You can trickle charge it - hooking up a slow charger (6-24 hours) of trickle of electricity
Most of us jumpstart or super charge our batteries back to life - we take a drive or go out to dinner or a ball game or hook up with replenishing friends or get away for a weekend or do something entirely different than what has often caused the drain.
For the most part this works - for a while. Unfortuneately high numbers of repeated jumpstarts can actually damage a battery and make it weaker. It's true in our lives as well. We can often fall into a pattern of enduring and holding on until the next jumpstart - If I can just make it to Friday! If I can hold on until our getaway! If I could just get to the course. I'll be ok if I can just get to the mall!
Trickle charge might be a lot better solution - but it's not easy to adapt to - it's slower. It often requires waiting. Sometimes it doesn't even seem like anything is happening - it's like a crockpot! Trickle charging forces us to:
- consider deeper causes for battery drain
- take assertive action in addressing damaging patterns
- discover grace to accept and embrace drains you cannot control
- say no to others and to opportunities
- slow down and say YES to people and things that matter more and most
- live more intentionally
If your battery is low, jumpstarting can be ok, but trickle might be the only true re-charge for your life.
For me, I realized that the battery had been low enough for long enough that unless I found a way to trickle charge I might be irreparibly damaged for the Master's use.
So I have a Sabbatical starting in just 17 days (actually, it sort of begins with a tour of Israel with Gwen and the Teaching Team that begins today).
2 comments:
Pastor D - I think this is so amazing that you are taking this sabbatical. Way to go! If any pastor i know deserves it, you deserve it. You are the hardest worker I know and care so much for your parishoners. Thanks for leading me and developing me as a leader. Now let God develop you. Oh and congrats on being a granddad!!!! Whooo who!!!!
Dennis, I really appreciated this post. I'd be curious to hear what you're implementing (beside the Sabbatical) to encourage a trickle charge.
I have spent considerable time the last year or so "jumpstarting," and could use some better ideas for promoting a trickle charge...
Thanks for the thought on this; I'm already considering better ways to manage energy drain.
-Ken DePeal
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