I’m not good at fishing but some of my favorite childhood memories involve trying to catch fish. Growing up, my dad would take my brothers and I on excursions where we would camp and fish. These “manly man fishing trips”, as they were called, involved a lot of laughter and running around in the woods but I don’t recall all that many fish actually being caught. Maybe that’s because my dad hardly ever got to drop his line in the water because he was too busy untangling our rods from the tangled mess we had inevitably gotten them into because we hadn’t listened to him.

I had a mickey mouse fishing pole and I vividly recall my dad doing everything for me. He would set it all up: hook, bait, weights, and even cast it out, telling me to sit still (so as to not scare the fish away) and keep my eyes on the bobber. That was it. I just needed to not be hyperactive and when I saw the bobber bounce just slowly reel it in. When ever a fish was caught he would even take care of getting the hook out of it’s throat and do the dirty work of cleaning it. All I had to do was reel it in. He took care of everything else.

The cool thing is that I have discovered when you follow Jesus’ instructions and go fishing for men it works the exact same way. God takes care of everything! He is the one who nailed our sins to the cross making it possible for us to have a relationship with Him. He is the one who works in hearts, drawing people to Christ and giving them the option to respond to Him, He is the one who sets up situations where we can invite people to church and share the gospel with them, and He is the one who knows whether someone is genuinely saved or not. All we have to do is to be faithful to cast out the net and reel it in.

As we preach the gospel and bring people with us to hear the gospel we must not trust in ourselves. For all practical purposes, we are like me as a little boy, sitting there on the dock with my mickey mouse fishing pole. But just like I have a great dad, we have an amazing Heavenly Father who sets everything up for us and, even though we often get things tangled up and make it more complicated than it needs to be, He loves us and allows us to play a part in the ultimate fish story!

Matthew 13:47–50 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that was thrown into the water and caught fish of every kind. When the net was full, they dragged it up onto the shore, sat down, and sorted the good fish into crates, but threw the bad ones away. That is the way it will be at the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous, throwing the wicked into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

By the way, there is an opportunity for you to go on a fishing trip tomorrow night! Skull Church is the first wednesday of every month and for the month of May that is tomorrow night. After music by the skull church band and our guest artist we are going to be casting the net and dragging it in. Is there someone you could invite to come with you (if you live in this neck of the woods) or to come over to your house to watch the webcast with you? It all starts at 7pm MST and streams in HD at www.skullchurch.com.

This is going to be a blog about how to deal with PMS. Now that I have your attention, let me assure you that this has nothing to do with “that time of the month,” I might only have 7 years of marriage under my belt but I know better than to go there–something about hell hath no fury… This is actually about dealing with “that time of the week.” And though it is not guaranteed to always occur, it is something that every pastor is going to deal with to some extent or another. I’m talking about POST MESSAGE SYNDROME.

Now there is also a lot to be said about PRE MESSAGE SYNDROME, because both the spiritual warfare and the nervous energy ramp up as you prepare to speak. I have found this is especially true as you prepare to preach the gospel in an evangelistic outreach. But in my opinion the period directly after a time of intense ministry can be even harder to deal with than the period leading up to it so that is where I want to throw down some one’s and zero’s in this post.

It’s not that I think there is more warfare afterwards, that’s not necessarily the case, but as you go into it you know you are at war so you are taking appropriate countermeasures. You are on your knees, putting the armor of God on in your mind. You know you need to be sober and vigilant, and you are. Heck, you are ready to pull a Martin Luther and throw an ink bottle at the devil in the night if he even thinks about showing up. Furthermore, during this time you (hopefully) have a team of armor bearer types around you who are holding up your arms and praying for you, keeping you free from distraction so that you can get your game face on.

I’m not trying to make light of this, or to suggest that even when you know it is coming, the spiritual warfare isn’t incredibly difficult to deal with. It is. Yet, when things go wrong before a message you’re reaction is going to be to filter it through the grid of what you are doing for the Lord. You’ll be like, aha! I’m getting attacked, this must mean we are on the right track! Surely God is going to save the entire city now because I got a flat tire. Praise God! I’m being persecuted for righteousness sake. The devil targeted my tire to keep me from preaching the gospel–but it will never work, I will drive on my rims over a road covered in flaming scorpions if I have to!

Now, maybe Lucifer blew out your tire or maybe it was a pot-hole. But I’ll tell you what, you get that same flat tire driving home from church on Sunday after you give the message and you’re gut-level reaction will be different. It will probably be more like, seriously? after I poured myself out all day trying to help these dang people come to know you? what the heck?! Are there no breaks in this world for a man of God? stinking, lousy tire and stupid awful roads. Lord, can I call down fire from heaven and blow up this wretched highway? Why did you call me to a town with so many pot-holes anyway?

All right, I was probably being a little melodramatic there but you get the idea. And if someone is reading this who holds ministers to unrealistic standards and you are appalled at this–please remember, pastors are people too! And this is nothing new either, didn’t the pouting prophet Jonah want to die when the worm ate his shade plant just hours after he gave his sermon to the Ninevites? Didn’t Elijah curl up in the fetal position and get emo after the showdown at Mt. Carmel?

This funk can strike differently at different times. Maybe you will be discouraged because it didn’t go very well, not as many people came as you hoped, or your delivery was off. Or maybe you will be discouraged even though it went really well. Last time I checked Jonah had a pretty good response to his preaching in Nineveh. And Elijah’s ministry on Mt. Carmel couldn’t have gone better. They still got bummed out. I have had times of ministry that exceeded my wildest expectations and yet I found myself full of melancholy for no apparent reason.

I don’t know why this happens. Maybe it’s to keep you humble, perhaps it’s because you’re tendency is to let your guard down when the bell has rung for this round. You are sitting there on the stool with your eyes closed trying to catch your breath, and that’s when the sucker punch comes. Neither your flesh nor the enemy play by the rules. Part of it is biologically understandable, there is no way for there not to be some kind of an emotional crash when the adrenaline, preparation and excitement that has gone into an outreach or a big service like Easter Sunday gives way to reality and the endless stream of Sundays that are coming. And love it or hate it, ministry in the past is like toothpaste–once it’s out of the tube there is no going back.

Some weeks it’s clean and simple and you move right on. Other times you agonize over it for a day and a half. If it was a really bad message you think, I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have quit my day job. If it was killer, you think I peaked, I can never do better than that, and next Sunday they are gonna be back with friends. You inevitably drive home playing the game tape over and over in your mind, sometimes wishing you could get in a time machine because you just thought of something you should have said…it’s quite maddening.

Of course the solution to all of this is to get your eyes off yourself, and give it all to the Lord because it was never about you, it was always about Him. And you have to keep telling yourself that lest you sink into self-adullation or self-flaggelation. Both are mistakes. It’s all about Jesus, not you.

The best advice I have ever got on dealing with this came from reading Greg Laurie’s autobiography Lost Boy. He describes the process of coming down from a crusade and how he learned from Billy Graham to not strut around like an exultant quarterback who has just thrown a game winning touchdown. He said the best thing to do was to normalize as quickly as possible, get some food, respond to some emails, get on with it. He described a time where he hung out with Billy after preaching and Billy was wearing pajama pants with loafers while eating dinner in a hotel room. It’d be difficult to get a big head wearing an outfit like that! With that in mind I try to move on quickly: erasing the glass whiteboard in my office where my message had been brewing in different colored markers, clearing off my desk, playing with my kids, watching a movie, taking a nap, reading a novel, going for a bike ride. That stuff is the preacher equivalent of midol.

Sure there are things that are going to come into your head that didn’t go well at the event. That’s bound to happen. I used to call everyone up whose dept misfired and have it out right then and there. I have learned to take notes in a moleskine and save them for the debrief, unless there are immediate ramifications. And I have also been challenged by the reality that regardless of how you feel you have to celebrate what the Lord did, not just for your sake but for your team’s sake. (read 2 Samuel 19:1-8 to see this in action)

Above all things when you come out of a battle, don’t let your guard down. Expect the attack as you come down from the mountain. And keep praying! I hope this has been helpful for other pastors who will read this, even if it’s just to let you know that you aren’t crazy if you have been experiencing stuff like this. You are not alone! Take heart.

How well do you know the enemy of your soul? The Bible says we are not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices. He has a bag of tricks that he has found to be extremely effective in tripping God’s people up. If we are aware of how he operates we can avoid being caught off guard when he comes against us with these wiles.

I think the attack we are usually waiting for is the direct one. Where he comes charging at us like a roaring lion, teeth bared, blood on his mind. It happens. But we need to remember that he also loves to show up as a slithering serpent. I think this is a far more effective tactic. Because while a direct attack causes us to brace ourselves for impact, when he comes incognito as “an angel of light” we are lulled into complacency and then set up for a sucker-punch.

We see this in action in the Old Testament book of Joshua. Moses had died. Joshua was leading God’s people into the Promised Land. Army after army came against them in battle and each time in the end God’s people came out victorious. But then they were bested by the men from Gibeon. This defeat didn’t take place on the battlefield. There was no actual battle. The Gibeonites won by taking off their weapons, taking a trip to The Salvation Army and digging through the trash behind their local bakery.

It sounds more like an episode of LOST than a story from the Bible, but that’s exactly what these original “others” did. Even though they actually lived 25 miles away they made themselves look like they had traveled hundreds of miles. They made a great show of telling Joshua that they had set out with piping hot bread and brand new clothes, but now their provisions were rotten and their clothes were all old and used. They knew that God’s people were not allowed to make a treaty with a nearby enemy, but they were allowed to do so with a people that lived far away. It worked.

Despite the fact that God had instructed them to take out all the inhabitants of the land of Canaan,Joshua signed the peace treaty promising not to fight with the Gibeonites. You can imagine how surprised and angry Joshua was when he discovered they had deceived him. But there was no going back, he had to honor the truce–he had given his word. As a result they forfeited a portion of what God had promised to them.

You need to understand that in the spiritual battle that you are in today your enemy might try to use this strategy. There could be a Trojan horse that is being readied even as you read this. It might already be inside your gates. Not everyone who seems to have your best interest in mind actually does. There are wolves that wear sheep’s clothing, snakes that will try to make you doubt God’s word. Very friendly people who will do their best to separate you from all the promises that God wants you to walk in. Be careful! Don’t let your guard down. Gird up the loins of your mind and stay alert. According to Joshua 9:14 The reason they fell for this trap was, because, “the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the LORD.” We must walk by faith and not by sight.

When our second daughter was born, my wife and I were given a fancy double stroller as a gift. It has practically every feature you can imagine. I’m not kidding, this thing can do just about everything besides pull you a shot of espresso. One feature that is pretty great is the shock absorbers. The designers made it to where if you are cruising along and one of the two babies on board have a hankering for some off-road strolling, with a flick of your wrist you can engage the shocks and boom! it transitions from race car to 4×4. The travel in the shocks eats up any unevenness in the ground allowing for a smooth ride, even on a bumpy road.

I think about this every so often when I am going into a meeting, situation or interaction that I know will bother me. I’d love to tell you that I never get ticked off or irritated. But I would be lying through my teeth. When I walk away from situations where I have responded poorly to something that has been in my path, I try to analyze what it was that got my goat and remember it. The next time I spot similar terrain coming I intentionally try to prepare myself, asking God for grace and humility that will function as an inner shock absorber so that I can properly respond to the bumps that I am about to go over.

I see this in action in Colossians 3:12. Paul says, Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; (emphasis added) Those characteristics will help smooth out potholes and dips in life but notice, he says we have to put those things on. They don’t just become a part of our daily lives by themselves, they have to be prayerfully engaged. What situation today is going to require you to be a Jeep and not a Ferrari? Engage your inner shock absorbers!

Often times when we are trying to discern the will of God our inclination is to wait. Hold tight. Sit still. Do nothing. Maybe we are freaked out that we will make a wrong decision or perhaps we are waiting for a bush to spontaneously catch fire and tell us what to do, but until we are 100% certain we aren’t budging. I think that oftentimes what we need to do is exactly the opposite. Step out in faith and trust God to either give us favor or close a door.

I think of the computers that are on treadmills and exercise bikes at the gym. The screens stay blank until you start pedaling. You can stand there all day pushing buttons, trying to start a program, but until you start to power it with movement, there is nothing on the display. I think that oftentimes God’s will is powered by motion. When we step out in faith, guided by the instruction He has already given us in His Word, often that is when we begin to get readouts. Stand still for too long and it’ll go blank.

I’m all for waiting on the Lord, taking time to pray, seeking wise counsel, asking God for a sign. But as I read scripture I see a whole lot of stepping out in faith with pretty low levels of certainty as to the outcome. Paul would set out for one city or seek to go to another country with little more than a desire, a hunch. He knew the gospel would “work” in one place as well as another and I don’t see him waiting for a “thus saith the Lord” before moving on. Every once in a while something special would lead him, like a dream, but most often he seemed to follow his gut. Sometimes it worked, other times he got shutdown. Big time. Are we to think he was out of sync with the will of God? If he was, than I’m in big trouble!

I think that it’s possible to miss out on God’s will for our lives because we are sitting on the couch waiting for it to be handed to us on a silver platter instead of getting out and moving towards it. In Genesis 24 Abraham charges a servant with finding a wife for his son Isaac. He had the fate of the entire Jewish nation on the line. No pressure or anything. He could have been seriously stumped by the assignment. Sat at home praying for God to give him a vision of the woman he was to find. Or lead her to him. Instead he got moving. And after he found the perfect bride for Isaac he praised God with these words:

Genesis 24:27 And he said, “Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.”

The key to me is the phrase, “being on the way.” Even though he wasn’t certain who he was looking for, he got moving. He started mashing on the pedals and trusted God to guide his steps. He didn’t know which girl he was looking for, but He knew what country he was supposed to start looking in, so he headed there. And God, in His providence, brought him straight to Rebekkah. The screen flickered to life only after he had been putting one foot in front of the other in the dark. I think in our times of uncertainty we should follow suit.

We might not know where He wants us to be ultimately, but we can step out in faith towards what might be His will. Will we take wrong turns? Come to confusing forks in the road? Get turned around? Probably. But I believe that God is capable of using these to bring us to where He wants us. Remember, it was not being able to get into Asia that ultimately brought Paul to Philippi. Looking back, I can say for certain that God has lead me, even though many times I set out in a fog of uncertainty with little more than a sanctified hunch guiding my voyage.

Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.