I was sharing some words with someone recently and listening to them talk. They had been pouring out and stretching themselves pretty thin. They were signed up for this bible study and this group while at the same time feeling like they were just checking the boxes. Nothing felt real to them. After hearing I thought, well duh with so much pouring out when do you ever refill? Especially for people that are really exploring the faith. It seems like most churches preach about getting plugged in and volunteering to do God’s work especially for those new. And I agree that is helpful. But there’s also a time to sit and to listen. A time when maybe pouring out isn’t the best idea.
At No Longer Bound, treatment program I went into, they preach about not being able to give what you don’t have. They talk about love. For most of us men starting the program we really don’t know what love is. We know the transactional love that society has taught us. We know if someone gives us a gift we give one back. If someone does something we must return the favor because if not we feel in debtted to that person. I remember so clearly my teacher asking one of us to give him a dollar (At NLB you aren’t allowed to carry money). They couldn’t do it. He asked again. Still couldn’t do it. No matter how many times he asked, he couldn’t give him a dollar because he didn’t have one. It’s the same with everything in life. We cannot give what we do not have. For me at one point that was love. I couldn’t give love away because I didn’t really know love. Mentally, I felt like I knew that people loved me but I didn’t feel it in my heart. Feeling my way through sobriety I desperately wanted to make amends early on. I wanted to do the right thing and read my bible daily. I wanted to give love to everyone I had been wronging or ignoring. But I wasn’t allowed to. I was told to wait. I wanted to help others find sobriety and clear their problems but I again had to wait. I was in a season of waiting and to be honest it felt selfish. Selfish that my family had to drive all the way to see me. They had to sacrifice their time and money to come visit me because I couldn’t get it together. I hated it. But I needed it. And God knew that before I could have even begun to understand. I needed to understand why I did what I did. I needed to face my past. I needed to find God in my own way before I could even think about helping others.
I believe we get so caught up in helping and so focused on being unselfish that we forget to take time for ourselves. Maybe right now you are in a season of being empty and you need a refill. Maybe you are having doubts about things and you need people to pour truth into you. Maybe you have just had a really hard year but people are counting on you so you keep pushing through to help them. And maybe you need to stop. I recently heard this line in a podcast that has a man saying ya I can’t stop, I don’t want to let God down. His friend turns to him and says man, you aren’t even holding him up.
There’s a time for everything. A season for everyone. A time to give but also a time to take. I had a long time to take and I’m now getting to see the rewards of that. But I often think of how lucky I am that I got to take a year break and truly work on myself. How many people are struggling to keep giving because the people need them, when really they need to take a break? Don’t let society or even religion tell you taking time for you is selfish. Because honestly you can’t give something that you don’t have. And maybe that’s a statement that brings mocking and scoffing. But maybe for someone they get a nugget of truth. Don’t get me wrong, serving is incredible and we are called to it as followers of Jesus. But we’re also called to life and living full and we can’t do that on empty. So take a break if that’s you. I needed a 13 month break. And it felt selfish. And it felt like I was missing out. But it was the best thing to ever happen to me. It’s not about checking the boxes. It’s about a life full of love and a life that is full of giving and receiving. In the words of everyone that every went through the bound… “just receive”.
