Well, in general, sorry, you know, we all, all of us need to learn to live under
pressure. Yeah. Because life is not easy. Right. You know, life is difficult, and
that's one of the things I think as a pastor I try to teach our people, is
that life is gonna be difficult either way, you know. I think Pastor
Anderson preached this sermon kind of on that subject, I can't remember the title of this
sermon right now, but it's, you know, you're either gonna eat whatever you
want. Choose your suffering. Yeah, right, you know, eat whatever you want,
and get diabetes, or be overweight, and that's gonna be difficult, or you're
gonna, you know, not eat everything you want, right, and exercise. I think he just
defended our people. We just had McDonald's on the way over here. We did. But you know what I mean, life is difficult, so we have to live under
pressure, but pastors especially, you have to live under pressure, because we're
constantly under pressure. I mean, just, we're talking about sermon prep. This
was something I had to deal with, and it was something that I, I don't want to
say I hated, but it was a problem for me in the ministry, and it was this
feeling that you're never done, right. I mean, you preach on Sunday morning,
and you've got Sunday night, and as soon as you're done with Sunday
night, you got Wednesday night, and as soon as you're done with Wednesday night, you know, we preach
three times a week, we're gonna do this for the rest of our lives.
You're always under this pressure, but I had to realize, what I had to learn is
that there's always projects that are not done. There's always sermons that are
not finished, you know, things that I'm still working on, and I have to be okay.
I have to be able to walk away from that sermon on a Tuesday, and do
something else, or walk away from that project, and take some time off with my
family. I've got to learn to live with that pressure on you, and just
realize it's always gonna be there. So, and that's just how the ministry is, you
know, you start doing weddings, you start doing funerals, you got this, you know,
these people to deal with, and whatever. You're always gonna have that.
I think it's just like, it sounds like you're just trying to avoid tunnel vision,
where you just can't see everything else, so you kind of give yourself a
break, and come back with a fresh perspective, because the outside
pressures are gonna be there regardless. There is no reason why to
impose that pressure upon yourself, kind of getting tunnel vision into something.
I think one of them just turned off, huh? Which one was it? I get tunnel
vision when I'm working on a project, and I see it, there's pros and cons to
both, to tunnel vision. The pro, obviously, is you're very focused, and when I'm
focused on a project, I don't like anybody bothering me. Like, I just, I become
very irritable, actually. Someone, you know, like, interrupts my flow, but the
con is that I don't know when to walk away sometimes, you know, because I
just want to finish it, or I lose track of time when I'm working on a project,
whether, even if it's a sermon, you know, I just, I lose track of time, and so I
think maybe applying that buffering zone will help with that. Yeah. Because,
you know, it's a deadline before the deadline, so to speak, right? Right, and
it gives you, and again, everyone needs to decide what works for them. Right.
But for me, I know, because I'm the same way, I don't know when to be done, I
don't want to be done, so it gives you, like, and we're talking about the sermons
right now. Right. When on Monday, or on Tuesday, or on Thursday, when I'm
writing those initial outlines, and my goal is just, can I preach, is it, is it,
can I preach this, where if I had to, I'm done? I could do it. Yeah. And that
kind of gives you a marker, because you know when you're there, when you're
like, okay, it's not what I want, but if I had to, I could preach this. Yeah.
And then I have to give myself permission to close that file, and now I've got to
plan out this landmarks, you know, trip, or now I have to write this little class
for our leadership class, or now I have to, you know, whatever, whatever it
is that you're doing. Knowing that you're gonna come back to it, Lord
willing, if, you know, if your schedule goes, and obviously everybody's
schedules gets messed up or whatever, but you have to, you kind of give
yourself permission to be done. Yeah. And then, but, but then you build in the
pressure, because then you go back to it on Wednesday, and now the pressure's
gone. Yeah. You know, I have to finish this, I have to preach this. Right. So you
give yourself those, so you're kind of building in times of, okay, I'm done now,
let me go focus on, because I mean, especially as a pastor, I mean, there's
times when I, I'm working on, you know, sometimes my schedule gets messed up, and
I have to do something else in the morning, so I spend the afternoon
working on a sermon, and I have to get to the point where it's like, okay,
it's, it's 5, it's 5 30, it's 5 45, I know my wife's cooking dinner, I can
smell it, you know, I need to get this sermon to the place where, could I
preach this, if all hell broke loose, could I preach this, because I have to hit save,
and now I need to go spend time with my family. Yeah. So you have to build in those
pressures, man. And it's more than just sermon writing, I mean, that's an
example we're giving, but in, in, sometimes people think you're crazy as
a pastor, you know, because people walk up to you, and they tell you the
worst things, right? I mean, they give us the worst problems, and that's because
we're the leaders, but somebody walks up to me and says, you know, this is
happening at this guy's life, or this lady's life, or their life, you know,
their marriage is falling apart, or whatever, and it's like, oh, okay, you
know, and, and I take the information, and it's like, did you hear what I
said? But it's like, I've got about three of those.