LiveDifferent Challenge (13): Get Marginalized! (Emotional Energy)

If you asked me what one area of ministry most fascinates, intrigues, and energizes me, I would without a moment’s hesitation respond: Soul Care.  I really believe that the nourishment and care of one’s soul is presently one of the most neglected areas of life.  We spend our time, energy, and resources tending to the things that are visible.  I often spend more time washing, dressing, and making presentable my body than I do cultivating my inner soul each morning.  I have countless times been convicted realizing that I have entered the house of worship to sit before the King of Kings, and have spent more time contemplating my clothing that setting apart my spirit for the presence of God.  Basically, our souls are too often neglected.

By soul I am speaking generally of what some would refer to as both the spirit and the soul. I mean the spirit, intellect, emotions, basically all that is unseen and incapable of measure.  Of all the four areas we will examine (emotional, physical, time, and financial), this is by far the hardest to quantify.  While we can objectively look at our checkbook and determine whether our financial margin has disappeared, who can so easily sit down and look at one’s life and determine that the emotional reserve is eliminated and overload is imminent?

So how do we know if our emotional margin is gone?  I remember situations in ministry where I was overjoyed when someone canceled our appointment.  That should have been a sign.  I have personally seen pastors leave ministry, even abandoning their wives and children, because they didn’t recognize the dangerous symptoms of burnout.  Depression, anxiety, substance or other kinds of abuse, compulsive overeating (or compulsive anything), are all symptoms that something is not emotionally right.

I feel a bit of freedom in this area right now because of my circumstances, so I must confess that this is not a huge area of concern for me at the moment. However, I have lived without emotional margin, and it’s HARD!  Circumstances change, so my prayer is that when my circumstances do change (i.e. we’re back in “full time” ministry), I will have already set up the emotional margin in my life, so that I know my limit and can keep a good 1.5″ away from the edge of the page.

So what are ways that we can promote our emotion margin, so that when crises do come, when someone does need help, when God knocks and has a challenge for us, we can respond with grace, easily drawing upon the emotional reserves, rather than collapsing and breaking down, unable to muster up any emotional energy.

Here are our LiveDifferent Challenges this week for restoring Emotional Margin:  Choose one or two to focus on; and I’d love to hear responses or other ideas.

1. Reconcile Relationships: “Broken relationships are a razor across the artery of the spirit.”  Unforgiveness drains your emotional energy.

2. Serve: Of 2,700 people studied for over a decade, “those who performed regular voluntary work showed dramatically increased life expectancy.  People not involved in such altruistic activity had 2 1/2 times the morbidity than those who volunteered at least once a week.”

3. Rest: Relax, sleep in, take a nap, turn off your phone.

4. Laugh & Cry:  People who laugh more heal faster.  Try laughing every four minutes (how often children laugh), you will be astonished at the results.  Similarly, cry.  Those who cry more get sick less often. That’s amazing!

5. Grant Grace: Judging others is a weighty emotional burden–“it is a form of emotional and spiritual suicide–like chopping a hole in the bottom of your lifeboat because you dont want the other person to be rescued.”

6. Create Boundaries: Try not answering the phone at dinner. Learn to say no.  Not with selfish motives, but for the sake of soul-care.  Protect your family.

7. Envision a Better Future: This isn’t about the power of positive thinking, it’s about knowing where your hope lies. We don’t hope in a better economy, world peace, or the end of hunger. We hope in the coming of Jesus Christ who will make all things new.  Know where your hope lies.

So this week, consider one or two of these areas and let’s counter our culture and refuse the temptation to run on Emotional Empty.  Let’s add Emotional Margin to our lives.  Let’s tend to our souls and cultivate the inner health of our emotions.  We’ll then we healthy, whole people, fit for the Master’s good work.