Have you ever found yourself so busy in ministry that you don’t have time to minister or be ministered too? I have!

Just this week I looked at my calendar and I had scheduled 3 very important meetings and all of them took place in that one week. After I spent a few moments arguing with myself, wanting to know what it the world caused me to do such a "blond" thing, I rolled up my sleeves and went to work preparing for each meeting. By the time the last meeting rolled around I was ready (and exhausted). I proceeded to go down my checklist about 1 hour before the meeting started:

• Handouts
• Notes
• Air turned on
• Music playing
• Refreshments ready
• Signs on doors
• Balloons up …

While doing this I heard a small voice whisper "How about spending some time with me before the meeting starts." The first thought I had was "I don’t have time, I need to be here when the people start arriving". But I decided to obey that still small voice and went up to the prayer room. After going over my notes (yes, I actually thought that I would "meditate" on my notes while praying), I felt the unction to kneel in His presence. When I did, a sweet anointing came on me and all I could do was cry. Then I heard God say; "Now you are ready for your meeting". It was one of the best meetings I’ve ever held with volunteers, and nine new people signed up to work in the children’s ministry.

Sometimes, as leaders, we can get so sidetracked with the duties, tasks, and expectations at hand, that we forget to nurture our relationship with the One who called us in the first place. It’s a tough balancing act and one that can only be accomplished by asking God for wisdom, which requires spending quality time with Him. Then we need to obey Him when He gives us instructions, no matter how inconvenient it is, or what we may have to sacrifice or change in order to obey.

If you find yourself getting easily frustrated or stressed out about the task at hand, or the work that needs to be done, you are headed for what I call the "religious zone". When you enter this zone all you do becomes works and you find yourself doing most of the work in your own strength.

When your relationship with God is real you don’t put all your focus on "works". It will be on making sure you are walking in His anointing. It shouldn’t be a "duty" to meet with God. Spending time with Him should be something we look forward to, like a good friendship or a healthy marriage. It should be natural to want to talk to Him and share all of your life with Him. When you have a revelation of who He is, you will never feel like you are in this all alone. If you find yourself "stressing out", you will simply turn to Him for what you need.

Then why are so many of us frustrated and stressed out? Because developing a real relationship with God requires self-control and truthfulness. It requires that we be disciplined enough to spend time with Him. This could be listening to a tape in your car instead of your favorite Music CD or radio station. Spending time reading that book He has put on your heart to read instead of watching your favorite TV show. Getting up a little earlier so that you have 15 minutes to look up those scriptures that you need to hide in your heart, to help you grow in that area you are struggling with. We have to learn to control our flesh and not always give it what it wants. But that’s only one part of walking with God in a real relationship. The other part is being honest and real with God about who we are, where we are, and what we are dealing with. If we truly want to walk with God, like Moses & David did, then we have to be willing to lay it all out and let Him prune us and shape us into the leaders He needs us to be. This is hard because pruning involves cutting and cutting hurts! And sometimes He prunes us in areas we don’t want to let go of. But we have to trust God enough to know that He knows what He is doing and all things will work out for our good.

We do have a choice. We do not have to develop a real relationship with God, which requires self-control and truthfulness. We can continue to lead through religious works; we just have to accept the fact that frustration, stress and failure will follow us around when we do. I don’t think I can live with that… Can you?