October 12, 2017 My dear Friends: Greetings from Brevard, NC. Sara and I, along with our younger boys, were able to get away for a few days to the mountains. As it turned out, I think it has been cooler back in Memphis than it has been here—go figure! But the leaves have been beautiful, especially from the top of the Blue Ridge Parkway—they are just on the edge of golden throughout the entire mountain range. Next week the leaves will likely be at peak. It has been awfully nice to take a break—mentally, emotionally, physically. Sometimes when you are in the middle of it, you don’t pay much attention to how you are wearing down. But then, when you can stop, when you can read a few books and run, when you can lie in the ENO and enjoy the breeze, you realize how worn down you were. It is true of us in our workaday world; it is just as true when we are “retired” and yet engaged in caring for others. I’m mindful of caregivers who send themselves into an emotional black hole because they exhaust themselves in caring for others. Sometimes, you have to take a break. God knows that about us. One of my favorite accounts is in 1 Kings 17-19. The first two chapters in that section (the first chapters I ever heard taught as a rising fourth grader, new to church through a VBS) are Elijah at his heroic best: “Choose you this day whom you will serve” he tells the Israelites. The mighty contest with the prophets of Baal, the fire falling from heaven, the slaughter of the prophets—it is all enough to fire the imagination! But that next chapter, 1 Kings 19, is truer to life. After all the battles, Elijah is exhausted—Jezebel threatens him with death; he runs away; and he finds himself under a tree, ready to die. What does God do? Does he come and chastise him, rebuke him, tell him, “Buck up, Buttercup!”? No. He sends his angel to feed him and take care of him as he eats and sleeps: “And the angel of the Lord came a second time, and touched him and said, ‘Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you’” (1 Kings 19:7). God knows that we are just dust—he knows that we need to take a break every once in a while if we are going to be able to hear his voice and to continue on this journey. Sometimes we need to be as patient with ourselves as God is. If he tells us that sometimes the journey is too great for us and we need to take a break, then shouldn’t we listen? Why do we think that God demands us to drive ourselves to death? Isn’t he a God of steadfast love, who knows our frame, who remembers we are dust? In the grip of God’s grace,
Rev. Sean Michael Lucas, PhD Senior Pastor Independent Presbyterian Church Memphis, TN