From a talk given at retreat for pastors, autumn 2023
Do you want to be healed? (John 5:6)
I knew I was in trouble when…
A couple asked to see me. I had a lot of fears in those days – more than I was aware of – but one was how unreasonably and embarrassingly difficult it was for me when people told me they were leaving our church. Despite my professed convictions, part of me took it personally.
So, when a couple told me, “We need to talk and it needs to be in person,” I braced myself for the conversation. But as this couple sat down around the small table in my office, with tears in their eyes, it quickly became obvious: they’re not here to talk about leaving the church. The real reason emerged: their marriage was falling apart. They had young children and they needed help.
Here’s where I knew, or, I should say, here’s where I should have known that I needed some serious help: my instinctual, gut-reaction to this couple’s news was relief.
Now, that was quickly followed with genuine sadness and compassion. But, and to this day I’m still embarrassed to admit this, my initial reaction was relief to hear this wasn’t about me, or the church, or their leaving the church, which, invariably, I would trace to my failures and inadequacies as a leader.
What was wrong with me?
Being a pastor has always been what Paul Tripp called a “dangerous calling,” but for a variety of reasons, you could make the case it’s never been harder or lonelier to be a leader in a local church (and by “leader” I don’t just mean paid ministry staff, but anyone tasked with leadership).
Now most of you, thankfully, are probably not in as low of a place as I was. Your heart might not be as tied to your church’s outward success as mine had become. Your sense of worth may not be as tightly bound to your work as mine was. And part of me knew better. I could preach on the dangers of making an idol of our work or needing the approval of others. Yet another part of me, one that I couldn’t access or change, still desperately needed that approval.
I have a very simple goal for you this evening: to give you two things that no one was giving me at that time, at least not in a way that I could hear or accept. And the first is the consolation of solidarity.
You are not alone. Please know that anytime you are talking with another ministry leader who has i been doing this for any length of time, more likely than not they are wondering how much longer they can keep going, or how they can get out. Incidentally, those who don’t feel this way (or won’t admit it, or won’t let themselves admit it) can be some of the scariest.
It’s easy for those of us who are constantly pointing others to Jesus and telling others about the sufficiency of Christ’s love, if we are not experiencing and living out of that love ourselves, for a gap to develop between our heads and our hearts, between our words and our lives. In a strange way, nothing lends itself to cutting yourself off from your feelings like being a leader in a local church.
“Keep awake!” Jesus warns (Mark 13:33). But it’s so easy for us to drift away (Heb. 2:1) from what probably brought us to faith in the first place, a deep sense of our own need alongside our gratefulness to God for having mercy on us.
When it’s your job to help others, it can be hard to raise our hands and ask for help, especially if our coping mechanisms are socially accepted – even socially applauded – like throwing ourselves into our work, which we tell ourselves is for God.
But here are some signs that you may have entered a danger zone that will threaten, if not your long-term resilience, at least your joy in your calling.[1]
If you check any of these boxes, rest assured I can only identify them because at one time or another, I’ve checked all of them. And some are still frequent warning lights. But by God’s mercy, at least today I am more able to recognize them as such: flashing signals urging me to pay attention.
Some Signs of Unhealth
- Am I reactive to circumstances and people around me?
- How do I respond when criticized? Am I easily offended? Do I tend to get defensive or feel threatened? Am I prickly when someone pricks me?
- Most of us want to be teachable, but how often do I admit, “I was wrong,” in a way causes me a genuine loss of face?
- When relational breaches occur, I might ask forgiveness quickly, but is it only to bypass the messy process of reconciliation? I might genuinely be willing to confess, but do my confession and my plans for repentance tend to lack specificity?
- Do I know what to do with my anger, if I am even aware of it? Might anger show itself in my impatience and irritability under stress, especially when my work is interrupted, or my expectations are not met?
- Am I prone to blame-displacement, not taking ownership, pointing to others or making excuses, thinking the real problem here is outside of me?
- Am I willing and/or able to slow down? Am I busy, often in a hurry, with very little margin? Do silence, stillness, solitude and sabbath feel more like infrequent indulgences than life-giving rhythms of necessity?
- Does my private prayer life reveal that, functionally, I am my own refuge, stronghold, and strength in times of trouble? Do I “knuckle down” before I kneel down?
- Do I find it difficult, if not impossible, to be a non-anxious presence – especially in a reactive, emotionally charged context? Would others describe me as a non-anxious presence?
- Does the anxiety roiling beneath my surface manifest in physical clues (fidgeting, chewing my fingernails, inability to sleep) or in signs of emotional distress (moodiness, cynicism, irritability, overreactions)?
- Do I lack self-awareness? Am I aware that I’m not self-aware? As a test, when’s the last time I asked the people I work around and live with – what’s it like being on the other side of me?
- Speaking of emotions and emotional processes, do I have a difficult time accessing or naming my feelings with any depth or specificity, especially darker feelings like anger, sadness, or fear? I know those words. But when it comes to engaging my emotions, am I more inclined to push them down, deny them or try to push through?
- I may be skilled at disclosure, appearing vulnerable. But real vulnerability and the emotional risk it involves terrifies me – it feels like weakness and this sort of weakness evokes shame. Do I feel threatened by sitting with my emotions or being asked to talk about them?
- When I want to grieve a loss, do I have a difficult time accessing my grief? When is the last time I cried like I see the men and women in the Bible weep? I know that the Bible is full of laments. But a part of me feels like letting myself grieve connotes a lack of faith.
- Am I aware of how my ancestors and the home I grew up in affect my present? Have I ever sufficiently grieved the core needs I had as a young child that were unmet?
- A lot of people like me. I can be charming. But, when it comes to conflict, do I tend to be conflict-averse, seeking consensus, not wanting to offend, or prone to people-pleasing?
- Do I avoid conflict by withdrawing, or engaging in other passive aggressive behaviors like talking about someone to a third party instead of speaking to the person directly?
- Do I try to control the narrative behind the scenes, behind peoples’ backs, or engage in conversations before or after the more public conversation?
- Do I lack the kind of deep, soul-bearing, intimate friendship that I long for? If I’m married, does my intimate life indicate that I’m living disconnected?
- I preach to others about being a beloved child and finding our identity in Christ. But do I live as an orphan, insecure, tied to idols of achievement and approval?
- Do I feel a sense of comparison and competition with other local churches and pastors, even if I wish I didn’t? Do I lack contentment and gratitude for what God is doing in our community?
- Do I have a critical spirit? I may call it discernment, but it reveals itself as I make uncharitable judgments of others. I tell myself a story about others’ intentions or character, then I justify my feelings about them based on the story I made up – without ever circling back to ask them about their intentions.
- Am I the same person in private as I am in public?
- Do I take ownership for my own emotional wellbeing?
- Am I prone to rehearse grievances? Can I let things go? I may talk about forgiveness, but have I truly released those who’ve hurt me from the debt they owe me? Do I still hunt for ways to exact payment, and justify this by rehearsing how they hurt me?
- Am I able to name, let alone boast in my weaknesses, limitations and failures? Even to such a degree that gives me the freedom to take the emotional risk of being seen by others? Would others describe me as a “free,” “unguarded,” “undefended” person?
- Am I in touch with my own pain? As a test, am I able to sit with others in their pain, even when that pain gets (mis)directed at me? Or do I still want to defend myself?
- Under fire, am I able to stay present as a curious, attentive listener? Would others describe me as “fully present”?
- Do I keep a list? (If you know, you know.) When people get on my list, is it hard for them to get off?
- I speak of grace but when it comes to strained relationships do I tend to place more weight on being right than being kind? Beyond words, does my heart’s posture reveal me to be a compassionate person, extending grace?
- How’s my relationship with Holy Spirit? Would I describe myself as someone who walks through my days with a close personal friendship with the Risen Jesus? As they arise, am I able to cast my cares on Jesus? Do I see his yoke as easy and his burden as light?
How are you feeling right now? I know these can be discouraging. But, as you’ll hear in a moment, sooner or later we see that even more than compassionate solidarity, we will need help to feel – temporarily – more acute pain, in order for deep healing to take root in our lives.
I am so thankful to have been helped by people who cared more about helping me than about what I thought of them. They were willing to endure my not liking them very much – in fact, at times, my being very upset with them. Mr. Rogers’ mom told him, “Look for the helpers.” I’ve had some wise helpers. From the care they’ve given me, I want to be of some encouragement to a couple of you.
There are no simple steps or quick-fix solutions out of the wilderness. But there are some signposts we must pass on the journey toward becoming more whole, more whole-hearted, more present, gentle, more at peace, more “rooted and grounded” in the surpassing love of Christ (Eph. 3:17).
- Admit You Have a Problem
My counselor liked to quote Rollo May, who said, “Only the strong seek help. The weak can’t admit they need it.” It feels like weakness, but it takes incredible courage to say – and mean – “I was wrong. I didn’t know. I need help.”
Admitting you have a problem is 40% of the battle.
And I say 40% because, as any good therapist will tell you, insight alone is not transformational. In fact, insight can retard transformation because we deceive ourselves into thinking we have dealt with the problem, when in fact all we’ve done is identify the tip of it. Hence, seeing and admitting is only 40% of the solution. You feel like you’ve solved it when in fact you are just getting started.
In his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor Maté, one of the world’s leading experts on addiction, says that all addictive behaviors either soothe pain or distract from it, so his mantra is “not why the addiction? but where’s the pain?”
Maté believes there is only addictive pattern, but it plays out in an almost infinite variety of contexts.
“The addict is after a temporary change in brain status. Addiction is an attempt to regulate an unbearable emotional state internally. You are trying to regulate internal needs through external means, be it drugs or the internet or exercise or food. Whatever. There is only one universal addiction process. The targets are different, but in each case, you are trying to escape emotional distress, emotional pain.”
That’s it! We are trying to escape emotional distress, emotional pain and that is so painful to admit. Maté lectures around the world and likes to ask audiences, “How many of you would say you are addicts?” He says only a few hands go up. Then he continues:
“Let me give you my definition. An addiction is manifested in any behavior that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in, and therefore craves, but suffers negative consequences in the long-term and isn’t able to give it up.” “Any behavior with the key hallmarks of craving, pleasure or relief in the short term, negative outcomes in the long term, and an inability to give it up. That’s an addiction. That could be to drugs…sex…gambling…exercise…pornography, the acquisition of wealth or political power…the hoarding of objects.” “Now, how many will acknowledge some addiction?”
He says almost every hand goes up. I’m not trying to flatten out distinctions between life-threatening addictions and late-night Netflix binges. But I am urging us to consider that it’s a continuum. That we’re not quite so different, and that, in one sense, the addicts among us can act as prophets, helping us admit that we too have our coping mechanisms.
Do you know what your coping mechanisms are, the strategies you employ to manage your emotional distress, your emotional pain?
Denial is a problem for every human being. We are all experts at justifying ourselves. But denial can be especially acute for those who are spiritual leaders. There are not-unreasonable fears associated with vulnerability: If I admit my unhealth, will it cost me my reputation, my job, my livelihood? These are legitimate concerns.
But we need to talk about coping mechanisms. We all have them. The additions, habits, patterns we employ to medicate, soothe, distract, our pain. And they are legion. Instead of casting our cares on Jesus, we medicate with our coping mechanisms. Busyness. Approval. Netflix. Cat Videos. Etc. What pain are we trying to kill? In The Book of Waking Up, Seth Haines puts it:
“Can you name the grooves in your life, the coping mechanisms that have been reinforced by years of dopamine stimulation? If not, use the cliche acronym HALT as your rubric for identifying them. You’ve heard this, haven’t you?
- When you’re hungry, what food do you turn to?
- When you’re angry, what do you reach for to douse the fire?
- When you’re lonely, how do you find relief? What do you click?
- When you’re tired, what bad habit, vice, or compulsion do you fall into?”
Here are two things to know.
First, quitting doesn’t make the pain go away. If anything, it just brings it more immediately to the surface. That’s why we use coping mechanisms! They work! Temporarily. The problem is not the addiction; the real problem is what our addiction was keeping us from facing.
Second, naming doesn’t make the pain go away either. As we said, we think that if we’ve named something that we’ve got a handle on it. That if, for example, we confide that we are burned out or don’t know ourselves very well, or that we have our own unhealthy coping mechanisms, that we’ve dealt with it because we’ve named it. Not realizing we named it to avoid having to deal with it. “See, I know what my problem is. Look how vulnerable I am. I can talk to you about it!”
We don’t see that this disclosure is another form of denial. It’s a defense, a coping mechanism, a way to avoid pain, by seeming to talk about it. ADMIT: I have a problem. That I can’t solve. As they say in recovery circles, “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him.” But that’s the key: you have to let yourself let go. You have to let God help you. And if you don’t know how hard that is, you are probably in denial.
- Give yourself Permission to be a Human Being
Even if no one else will, give yourself permission to be a human being. That is something very few of us give ourselves. Speaking from personal experience, we can be our own harshest critics, putting more pressure on ourselves than anyone. Who put that pressure on me? I put it on myself.
Compounding this pressure, very few people around you will be giving you this: permission to be human. People often put their pastors on pedestals. Even if we urge them not to, there are reasons they want to. And sometimes, though we might not care to admit it, we help people put us on a pedestal. I know I did. But the dark side of a pedestal is the resentment that comes when we don’t live up to their expectations. And here’s a law: the higher the pedestal; the deeper the resentment.
Herman Melville wrote, “Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” Anne Lamott wrote, “Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy. Even (or especially) people who seem to have it more or less together are more like the rest of us than you would believe….This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me.”
These writers are giving us a more realistic, more Biblical anthropology. David Zahl calls this a “low anthropology” and says it rests on three pillars: limitation, doubleness, and self-centeredness.
Limitation means we are aware that we are finite and frail, bound by time and history, our family of origin, and all sorts of other factors that shape our behavior. In his memoir, Terry Crews says he knew he turned a corner when his daughter spilled her water all over the table and he didn’t lose it. His reaction was “Don’t worry. We all drop things and spill water all over the table.” Limitations are not sins. What feels like a weakness, what is a weakness, is not a sin. It’s part of being human. We spill things, drop things, have irrational phobias. We make messes.
Pillar two is doubleness. Doubleness is our recognition that we are, as Paul Tournier called us, a heap of contradictions. We are, as Augustine wrote, “an enigma” to ourselves, pulled this way and that by what William James called our “divided selves.” The Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt credits the Apostle Paul for making clear that we will often act in ways that baffle and confuse ourselves. Why do I not do what I want to do, but instead do what I hate? It’s human to feel like a hypocrite, and you have permission to be human!
So, next time you catch someone else in a blatant contradiction, remind yourself of what my counselor said to me when I was complaining about the inconsistencies of someone close to me. “Oh, I’m sorry. Does he not get to be complex like you? Does he not get to be a human being?” Ouch!
Pillar three is self-centeredness. Martin Luther famously said the human creature is curved inward on itself. Or as Immanuel Kant put it, from the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made. Someone who is self-aware and sober-minded is someone who has learned to say, “Selfishness, we have come to realize, is the root of our troubles.” That’s from the Big Book. But there’s a new freedom in being able to accept just how prideful and selfish we tend to be as humans.
- Raise Your Hand and Ask for Help
I believe that every pastor needs four kinds of help – most often from four separate people.[2]
- A wise and seasoned counselor who is biblically rooted and clinically informed.
- A Spiritual Director who can help us discern God’s presence and our wants.
- A Spiritual Friend, a sacred companion on the journey to know Christ.
- A battle-scarred mentor who’s already made the mistakes that we’re about to.
Most of us would give a tremendous amount of money to find even one of these. Hurt the purse; help the soul, as they say.
But we can’t use our inability to find help as an excuse for not getting the help that we need. There is truth to the adage: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
We’ve already said that helpers have a hard time seeking help. But as you learn to genuinely say “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him,” then, when/if you are sincerely ready to be healed, God will provide a helper. Don’t assume that most people want to be healed.
I was afraid to get help, at least the kind of help that I really needed. Oh, I saw counselors. But I was so guarded, so defended (though I did not know it) that I could keep anyone who was trying to help away from my emotional pain.
I wasn’t aware of it, how I would tell my counselors what I thought they needed to hear. I needed their approval. And I was very skilled with my words. I knew the right things to say.
But thank God he brought someone into my life who was wise and brave enough to help me see how I was using my words, intellect, rationalization, and spiritualization, as a defense mechanism to keep myself from pain, and from my emotions, particularly those I was afraid to let myself feel: anger, sadness, fear.
A part of me thought that if I let myself feel those things it would kill me, that I couldn’t handle it, that I would be out of control. And then? It took me a while to say any of this out loud.
Jesus asked, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6). Most of us would say of course we do. But a lot of us don’t want to be (Numbers 11:4-6). “Do you want to be healed?” No, but do you want to be healed? When you are aware THAT is the question, you are on the path to waking up.
- Expect Pain to Be Healed of Pain
One of the most helpful books on leadership today was written more than 25 years ago by a Jewish rabbi and family therapist named Edwin Friedman. In A Failure of Nerve, he claimed that America was awash in an epidemic of anxiety and that only leaders who can maintain a “non-anxious presence” can stem that tide, though he warned that such leaders should expect stiff resistance.
How might we become a non-anxious presence? A crucial part of that journey will always involve navigating our own devastating pain. Friedman writes:
“There is no way out of a chronic condition unless one is willing to go through an acute, temporarily more painful phase. This is another principle of emotional process…whether we are considering a toothache, a tumor, a relational bind [or] a technical problem… most individuals, and most social systems, irrespective of their culture, gender or ethnic background, will naturally choose or revert to chronic conditions of bearable pain rather than face the temporarily more intense anguish of acute conditions that are the gateway to becoming free.
But what is also universally true is that over time chronic conditions, precisely because they are more bearable, also tend to be more withering.”
I wish we had a few hours to talk about just this one quote, because it is so deep, important, and counter-intuitive. If we grasp it, a door to a dark room can open.
The change that we say we want – Yes, I want to be healed! – brace yourself, it will be painful. We must experience pain to be healed of our pain. The only way to be relieved of chronic pain is to let ourselves experience an acute, temporarily more painful phase.
Let me translate. If you go to a counselor, you are going to spend a lot of time and money to feel much worse before you start to get a little bit better. You will face your own failure of nerve. You will be tempted to lose your nerve (I’m paying for this?!?) and go back to that bearable, chronic condition, which, in the long term, is so much more withering.
There is no quick fix, no shortcut to emotional health.
And we don’t all start in the same place. A lot of what we are inclined to think of as our character, has so much more to do with the homes we grew up in, and our earliest relationships – which we might not even be able to consciously recall.
Some of us, like me, have to work very hard, every day, to be a little bit healthier. I used to think that was discouraging. But I’ve learned to celebrate the progress, how far I’ve come by God’s grace (1 Cor. 15:10) rather than shame myself for the distance I still have to go.
- Embrace the Treasures in the Dark
That’s what one of my mentors said to me, “There are treasures in the dark.” And that has become a guiding light. There is gold in the wilderness, a gold that can only be had in the wilderness. “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).
It’s in the dark wilderness where we learn to cast all our anxiety on Him, because that’s where our hearts become finally convinced of His care (1 Peter 5:7). We can easily cite this verse, but in practice, it can be so hard. Why is it so hard for us to cast our anxieties and burdens on the LORD?
Because when it’s genuine, it’s terribly threatening. It means that we are self-aware. We give up our patterns of denial and face our coping mechanisms and take pains to resist their lure.
We realize, in ways that are deeply troubling, “I can’t. I can’t do this by myself. I need help.” In our professional life, we tell others, “We stand in desperate need of God’s mercy and grace, to help and heal, to forgive and cleanse us.” But internally, we fiercely resist surrender. We resist those things that cast us down to the ground, without noticing what Parker Palmer, a respected Christian author who struggled deeply with depression, once heard from his therapist:
“Parker, you seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend pressing you down onto ground on which it is safe to stand?”
Palmer said he realized that he had spent so much of his life flying high above the ground, trying to look impressive. It never occurred to him that his desire to soar was keeping him from the contentment he craved, from rest for his soul.
Jesus promises us there is rest that only comes from humility (Matt. 11:28-30). “Learn from me, for I am humble…and you will find rest for your souls.” As we have preached, the gospel of grace humbles us and brings us down to the ground.
For those who want to be healed, we must discover with Parker Palmer and the Apostle Paul that the ground we have so feared, is the place where we might finally embrace what it means to be “rooted and grounded” in the love of God, where we might come to know the love that surpasses knowledge.
The ground is a safe place.
And when you are learning to live life from the ground, do you know what that makes you? Unoffendable. Free. Human. We come to terms with our limitations, doubleness and selfishness. We become able to laugh at ourselves. We recognize our deep need of perpetual help. In the wilderness, in the dark we find ourselves on the path to discovering that God truly is our refuge, our stronghold, our strength (Psalm 18:1-3).
Don’t we worship the God of the cross? Doesn’t the cross show us that the path to the new life we desire will always pass through a crucifixion? There’s no escaping. And the more self-reliant you have been, the more capable, the more painful that crucifixion of your competency will be.
Thanks for listening. Now, let’s have a discussion.
[1] These are adapted from various sources: Thom Needham, Pete Scazzero, and Edwin Friedman, among others.
[2] At some point in the near future, we will be writing an essay on each of these four: what each one is and how you know you’ve found, for example, a wise counselor who can help you.