Have You Ever Been Corrected by A Book?

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I read Mark Galli’s Mastering Your Personal Life. This is a book written to pastors in a series aimed at helping pastors manage their lives and ministries. In this particular book, Galli is the editor of several other well-known (in their time) pastors as they share their own experiences in this area of our personal lives. So, where does the correction come in? I am glad you asked.

First, Gordon MacDonald challenged me to consider what I am aiming my life at. For many pastors, and I am one of them more often that I would like to admit, life is more like Charlie Brown at an archery contest than Robin Hood. What do I mean by that? In the Peanuts comics illustrated by Charles M. Schultz, Charlie Brown, the oft-maligned pitcher, big brother, and dog owner, was once pictured in his backyard. He was shooting arrows into the air and wherever they landed, he would go and draw a target around them. He figured that way he was always hitting the bull’s-eye without having to actually aim at anything. MacDonald challenged me to consider what I am aiming at when agreeing to give my time to my church, community, family, and self (not to mention my relationship with God).

Second, Maxie Dunnam challenged me to consider what I am doing to rest. You may not believe this, but I am a driven person. Some people might say I am a “Type A” personality. What this means is that I need to be doing something just about all of the time. When you add to this that I am undisciplined (see above), this can often end up looking dangerous and other times comical. A little like the dog in the movie, Up, I can be running after something with intensity and focus only to find something else along the way to chase. All of this running often wears people around me out. Secretly, it also wears me out to the point that I don’t enjoy people, ministry, family, or even rest as I should. Sometimes the best I can do is get away, hit a racquetball REALLY HARD and rest.

Third, Maxie Dunnam challenged me to ask questions about what I am doing to invest myself into the lives of those around me. Gordon MacDonald suggested that he wants to be the person that gives life to those around them instead of the person that drains it. Maxie Dunnam asks how I am positioning myself to be able to do just this same thing. As I look at my life, I find that I am often so busy doing ministry that I am not actually ministering to anyone. Even as I write this article, I am wondering that I could be doing to pour into someone else’s life instead of writing my nearly 500th article for publication in the newspaper.

Lastly, the one big lesson I learned from reading this book, and a lesson I hope to pass along to you, is that we only get to take one ride on this roller coaster we call life on earth. I don’t get a do over. Marty McFly’s time machine is just in a movie. So, how am I going to manage what I have been given so that my life matters for eternity? Am I going to live and let life happen to me? Am I going to love and just complain because others don’t love me? Am I going to learn or just envy those around me who seem to know more? Am I going to curse the darkness or share the light? Am I going to…you fill in the blank.

I have been corrected.