I recently started driving a new car. It’s a 2001 black Ford Crown Victoria with the Police Interceptor package. It started its life as a Detective car with the Beverly Hills Police Department. Especially as a Chaplain, it’s a really fun car to drive!
The story of how I got it is fun in and of itself, but it’s not the point here. The Crown Vic replaces a 1989 Honda Prelude I had been driving for the last two years. It too was a really fun car. Sunroof and four-wheel steering. Forget the dime, this thing turned on a pinhead!
There are practical reasons for the change. Primarily, the Prelude was a two-door with not much of a back seat. Just not a family car. My 13 and 12 year old sons could no longer fit in the back seat. The Crown Vic is much more spacious and four doors work well for the family.
The biggest downside is the gas mileage, particularly in this economy! The Prelude was a sipper, where the Crown Vic is a guzzler.
Why upsize from a sipper to a guzzler? Well, bottom line is that the Crown Vic was given to me. So was the Prelude, but when the Crown Vic was offered, I knew I had to receive it. The fact that it’s a guzzler is a limit that I trade off for the family space.
It’s an analogy to me of how God gives each of us not just our spiritual gifts and abilities, but our personalities and physical bodies. When you mix all those things together, they come out with a design that includes your own personal pace of life.
I am a believer in Pastors discovering what their pace of life is and then living in that. The fact that most of us Pastors look at the pace of life of other Pastors and believe we must live at their pace rather than our own is a real problem. Too often, it leads to burnout, dissatisfaction, disillusionment and sometimes even more deeply staggering consequences.
What would happen if someone REALLY freed you to discover the pace that God has given you and then freed you to live by it? I want to round table that with you this week. Let’s talk some about what elements of life impact or help define what your pace of life is. Any initial thoughts?