High Achiever?

What is the biggest challenge you face? Building a cohesive team? Communicating a clear vision? Developing strategy to realize that vision? Is it securing funding? Recruiting volunteers and staff members?

Maybe you have small children and you’re trying to find some space for yourself outside their many needs. Perhaps aging parents demand your time and attention, as you help them navigate medical issues and transportation.

Or perhaps you’re working through health challenges that have you feeling worn down and depleted.

Seriously. Stop for a moment and reflect: What’s your biggest challenge right now?

Most of us, when faced with an important, urgent challenge, can sense the adrenaline start to build and will clear our schedule and forego sleep if needed, doing whatever it takes to address and even conquer the looming challenge. We rise to the occasion, whether it be a crisis at work, a child’s last-minute need, or a parent’s health emergency.

Are you like this? You rise to the occasion. You do whatever it takes. Like Superman, you are “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” When an employee or coworker quits or becomes sick, you step up and work harder to fill in the gaps. When your spouse is out of commission, you take over additional family responsibilities.

And you keep going.

At least, for the time being.

I celebrate this kind of perseverance, this kind of ownership. I recognize it in myself as well. Our capacities can accomplish great things, especially under the guidance and direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We love quoting, and seeing that “all things are possible.”

But here’s what I’ve also noticed in myself and others over the years: people who would not even flinch at spending thirty hours in transit to a speaking engagement, who are also negotiating major real estate transactions for their organization, who are also hiring key staff members, or who are at home caring for children while taking their parents to various medical appointments, or who are responsible for developing visionary financial proformas to present to their board next week while gearing up to bring a “fresh word” to that awaiting audience—all find it extremely difficult to do one thing: retreat.

We stay up all night, push past physical and emotional pain, ignore the pleas of friends and loved ones, and keep going, often “for the sake of the call,” or so we think. Some of us openly vilify the very word, as if a halt in forward progress is a threat to our existence or an indictment of our character. But a bit of reflection usually reveals that our overdoing is often rooted in our ego, in not disappointing powerful people, in appeasing our fear of failure.

Before we get too frustrated with ourselves, though, let’s remember: this resistance to rest and retreat is not a new or novel thing for the people of God. And to understand what’s behind it, we don’t have to look too far.

Throughout Scripture, we see dozens of invitations and admonitions, and even commandments, to live and lead out of a place of rest: God introduces, almost immediately, a pattern of Sabbath; Jesus further shows us this through his habits of solitude, stillness, and prayer; the Israelites are given the law of Jubilee. These are things the Lord has created, modeled, and invited us into that reinforce rhythms of rest and retreat.

Yet rest and retreat, while having many gifts to give, also require something of us: trust. That’s what makes it so hard. If we are going to truly rest or retreat, we have to have a deep and abiding sense of trust that God will sustain us and all the things we are involved in, even as we step away.

One of my favorite passages from all of Scripture, Isaiah 30:15, reads like this:

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”

Can you hear the ache in God’s voice saying, “but you would have none of it”? God offered himself as his people’s protection and strength, but they went out and secured what they thought would be sources of provision and security instead: faster horses so they could flee from their oppressors, alliances with powerful neighboring nations, anything this world could offer to ensure their well-being.

And yes, we do the same today, working harder and harder in order to “guarantee” our well- being, our financial stability, our children’s future, and any number of things we don’t actually have control over.

But God aches over you and me when we choose to go elsewhere to ensure our well-being. He wants nothing more than for us to completely trust him in regards to our provision, our peace, and our safety.

Even today, he says to us: “In repentance and rest is your salvation.”

Can you hear God’s longing to be our provider, protector, our source? God’s sadness over knowing what and who we become when we choose otherwise?

God spoke about rest and retreat through his prophets in the Old Testament, but he modeled it for us in the person of Jesus. There’s a story in Mark 1:35 that comes right on the heels of a successful ministry event. These days we might even refer to it as a revival. Jesus was preaching and healing people and drawing larger and larger crowds.

What would we do in that kind of a situation?

Would we keep working, doing more and more? Look at all the advancements being made for the kingdom! We wouldn’t want to jeopardize that!

Would we call in for more disciples? Now is the time! We have to strike while the iron is hot!

Or would we retreat and rest?

Somehow, in the midst of that budding revival, that is what Jesus does:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” (Mark 1:35-37)

Jesus retreated to be with God. He left the crowds behind. And irresponsibly enough, he didn’t even tell his followers where he was going! What if they would have needed him for something? What if something had gone horribly wrong? What if someone in a position of power had wanted to talk with him, to support them, to help the cause? What if someone had needed healing or demon-possessed people had approached?

His followers’ reaction sounds familiar to me: “Jesus, where did you go? There are things to be done, people to be healed, sermons to be preached!”

Everyone is looking for you!

When we consider our current models of ministry and ways of operating, rest and retreat almost sound silly. To walk away, just when things are beginning to take off, seems foolish, even irresponsible. After all, we are here to help people find eternal life.

Whatever the cost.

Whatever the cost?

If rest and retreat are essential, they might also sometimes appear ill-timed. Inappropriate or irresponsible, even.

But if God in human form needed to rest and retreat, how much more do we need the same?