The other day I came across the story of a pastoral couple experiencing an extremely difficult season in ministry. 

Division – Change – Instability – Fear 

These realities were everywhere and slowly, but effectively working themselves through the congregation, leadership, and the pastors themselves. 

As the resistance continued to flow in, the pastors did their best to respond to each complaint.  Like firefighters fighting fires on multiple fronts, they ran from fire to fire, issue to issue, doing the very best to prevent these micro fires from doing too much damage to their community. 

Then one night the wife had a dream.  Here’s how the author shared it:

In the dream a group of leaders were at the church property gathered around a bonfire.  All of these little demons were running around starting fires around the property, and the leaders began to move all over the grounds to stamp out the little fires the demons had started.  A voice came out of the bonfire and said, “In fighting the fires, you forfeit the flame.” (Spiritual Authority by Rob Reimer)

As they processed the dream, what God was teaching them became clear.  When you focus on the work of the enemy, you end up losing sight of the Lord.  As the book puts it, “Pursue the flame of His presence, not the fires of the enemy.”

Hebrews 12:1,3 calls us to, “Set our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” 

Did you catch that?

Weariness is not simply the result of being overworked.  Losing heart is not simply produced when life gets difficult or unproductive.  Hopelessness, exhaustion, burn out, and weariness are not simply the end result of going through life too hard, too long (though that will certainly affect us as well), but going through life with our hearts and minds set upon the wrong things.

Set your eyes on Jesus…consider Him…so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 

Weariness is the result of taking our eyes off Jesus.  Losing heart is the inevitable end of a heart and mind fixed on our opposition, rather than the One who was opposed and suffered on our behalf.  Hearts and eyes set upon things other than Jesus will inevitably lead to discouragement. 

This isn’t about ignoring the opposition, challenges, and responsibilities we hold as leaders in our respective fields (think family, business, ministry etc.).  It’s not about burying our heads in the sand and pretending like all is well.  It’s simply about refusing to allow whatever opposition we experience to become distractions that pull us away from our Source of life and love in Christ.

In a recent interview, Apple’s Tim Cook was asked to comment on how Apple’s new privacy features would affect the social media giant Facebook.  I love Cook’s response:

"I'm not focused on Facebook, so I don't know."  His response is so simple and yet so brilliant. (source)

For Cook, the wants, needs, opinions and values of their competitors are not driving Apple’s decision-making process – Apple’s values are. 

When we become fixated on the problems, the opposition, the noise, the micro fires burning around us, whether we realize it or not, what we’ve done is to allow the wants, needs, opinions, and values of those setting these fires to drive our decision-making process.  However, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, when we choose to consider the One who endured such opposition on our behalf, Jesus and His mission and values drives our decision-making process.

If we allow the wants, needs, demands, values, expectations of those around us to determine who we are and what we do, weariness and a loss of heart will inevitably be ours.  But when we remain focused on Jesus, then hope, life, love, and supernatural joy are ours, even when the circumstances around us suggest we should feel otherwise. 

If you’re tired of being tired and wearied by your own sense of weariness, perhaps it’s time to reset your focus.  There will always be fires popping up demanding our attention, but only the bonfire of God’s love can fan the flame of faith God has placed with us (2 Timothy 1:6).  So today, let us, “Pursue the flame of His presence, not the fires of the enemy.”