When you heard God’s calling to be a pastor, you eventually stepped out in faith.
You decided to go to seminary, get ordained, or start a church.
Many lives are changed for good because people step out in faith when they hear from God.
It’s always comforting to hear from God, especially when His promptings are small and relate to things you would ordinarily do.
Every once in a while, He asks you to do something way out of the ordinary. He says he trusts you and made you for this. All of your life He has been preparing you for what is coming next.
Remember when you were living your life in a certain direction and then God asked you to go another way?
It elicits feelings of both excitement and fear.
Pastors are changing lives because of their boldness to follow God’s calling. Now, pastor’s lives can be changed by others stepping out in faith.
How God Threw Me for a Loop
I have heard from God on many occasions. But this time He threw me for a loop.
Do you remember how scary it was when you first learned God wanted you to be a pastor?
I always knew I would have 2 careers I just thought they would be related. As a physical therapist I thought my other career would be medically related. But God had other plans for me.
I was managing a clinic and working as a physical therapist. A career I love and worked hard to achieve. As I was taking a class the speaker introduced themselves as a coach for special needs parents.
At that moment I knew God wanted me to be a coach.
Ten minutes before this I didn’t even know life coaches were a thing.
Has this happened to you? God asks you to step into a world you knew nothing about?
I kept asking God … “Are you sure you want me to be a life coach? Who do you want me to coach?” I was thinking physical therapists or doctors. People I regularly interacted with.
But God had other plans for me. He revealed to me in my quiet time that he wanted me to help pastors.
Help people doing His work.
Embarrassingly, I asked Him if He was sure. Have you ever questioned God on something he asked you to do?
God Will Make It Happen Even If You Resist
Then God asked me to do something I found crazy. He asked me to start telling people! But I wasn’t ready to do that as I hadn’t fully committed to God’s idea for me yet.
Does it take you a while to process God’s next steps for your life?
I decided to share God’s plan for me with my husband and one close friend. They were both supportive and easily saw God’s connection to my life and helping pastors.
They reminded me:
- That I am the most religious person they know, making time with God sacred.
- How I transformed myself from being deep in the burnout cycle, to having a thriving marriage and daily quality time with my children, and,
- How I make self-care a priority.
Isn’t it awesome how others see in our lives
important things that we are blind to ourselves?
God started to put pieces together in my life to enable me to make this change. Two days after I learned what coach training would cost, almost the exact amount of money needed for my training showed up in an unexpected check.
I was slow to make progress towards His goals for my life so He pushed harder. My place of work was bought out by another company with different values than my own. Suddenly, a career I loved became one I dreaded.
God kept pushing me in little and big ways to get to his purpose for me until I relented.
The more I shared my plans to help pastors the more it was confirmed how much this was needed.
- Pastor’s wives told me that they felt their husband are married to the church.
- Adult children of pastors said they didn’t want their children to grow up as they had.
- And, new stories showed up about pastor’s marriages suffering because of poor work/life balance. Burnout was having pastors quit their calling.
God heard your prayers and sent me to help you — not to be a better pastor — but to:
- stay deeply connected with your wife and kids
- care for yourself without guilt
- lead your team well, and
- avoid burnout so you can keep changing lives
May you pastor from wholeness!