Guarding Ourselves

Warm-up: 1 Timothy 4:6–16

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Acts 20:28

We can expect attacks on the sheep—savage wolves from without and wolves in sheep’s clothing from within. So, as Paul warns, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock. . . .” Guarding others begins with guarding ourselves. On this preoccupation everything depends. As the wise man said, “Above all else, guard your heart” (Prov. 4:23).

Søren Kierkegaard wrote in his journal that “would-be theologians . . . must be on their guard lest by beginning too soon to preach they rather chatter themselves into Christianity than live themselves into it and find themselves at home there.”

What he writes about would-be theologians remains an occupational hazard for all of us: How easy it is to chatter on about a God we do not know and traffic in unlived truth. We should heed James’ warning about speakers being more likely to be hypocrites than anyone else (James 3:1–12).

Paul said to Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16).  It’s vital to stay in touch with God. The alternative is to do damage to ourselves and to those we want to help. If our personal lives are disordered, others’ lives will also be in disarray. We must take care of ourselves first. By doing so we take the first step in saving others.

Life drains us. There is the ministry itself—working with others, planning activities, studying, thinking, preparing messages. There’s the monotony of doing the same things day after day—dozens of tedious endeavors. And then there is our own everyday job of fighting temptation, suppressing our passions, working with God to correct our faults. Our work gets to be wearisome and our energy ebbs away. We need perpetual renewing of our original impulse, drive, and desires; like a spring-driven clock we need to be wound up again.

And so we need our solitude, not mere privacy and time alone, but time alone with God, a regular, specific time and place to read His Word, to pray, to worship, a beginning place from which we can practice God’s presence through the day. “Without solitude,” Henri Nouwen wrote, “it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.” Solitude begins with a time and place for God, and Him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but that He is actively present in our lives—healing, teaching, and guiding—we need to set aside a time and space to give Him our undivided attention. Jesus said, “Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen” (Matt. 6:6).

Oswald Chambers said, “The only way to survive in ministry is to steadfastly refuse to be interested in ministry and to be interested only in Jesus Christ.” Without that preoccupation, we have nothing to say and no reason to serve.

But how do I manage it? Something or someone always opposes me; my best resolutions go awry; I find it hard to get to that secret place and shut the door.

When I was a much younger man, I met with an earnest friend who invited me to join him in developing a “consistent quiet time,” as he put it. I knew that prayer and worship was my primary task, and I wanted more than anything else to learn how it was done, but his plan never worked for me. I couldn’t get the hang of it.

I’d stay with his scheme for a week or two, rising very early each morning to agonize my way through a regimen of prayer. It was a discipline I imposed on myself—somewhat like devoting oneself to doing fifty push-ups every day. I knew the program would be good for me, but I hated the drill and in time I gave it up, believing that I wasn’t one of those destined for meditation and prayer.

It wasn’t until much later that I stumbled across something that changed my mind—something David said: “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Ps. 27:8). I realized for the first time that the first move was God’s. He was taking the initiative to meet with me! Those deep longings to be alone with Him were not mine at all, but His. My desire to meet with God was His voice calling out to me, saying, “Seek my face.”

And then I recalled what Jesus said to the woman at the well—almost a throw-away line—about the Father seeking us to worship Him (John 4:23). It’s that idea of God wanting me, seeking me, missing me that renewed my soul.

And so He calls to me—His depths to mine. Deep within God and within me, it seems, there is a place for just the two of us, and without that fellowship we both ache in loneliness and emptiness.

And so I have come to believe that worship is not a matter of my trying to get God’s attention, but of my listening for the call of God. I am not the seeker, He initiates my love. Worship is my response to Him as He reaches out to me, speaking to me. And, as a friend once said, “It’s up to me to be polite enough to pay attention.”

G. K. Chesterton said that the whole Bible is about the “loneliness” of God. That’s a new way of thinking about Him—to believe that what He always wanted was my love; that though He knows every urge of my mean little heart, He still likes me and wants to be my friend (cf. John 15:15); that in some mysterious way, He not only wants me but actually needs me and calls me to seek His face. The idea that my longing is actually His voice calling—that idea alone—has changed the way I look at my quiet moments with God. They are now neither duty nor discipline, but rather an answer to one who wants to know me and to be known.

The Psalter Hymnal includes this wise anthem:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Savior true,
No, I was found of Thee.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,
’Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.
I find, I walk, I love, but O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee:
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
Always Thou lovest me.

Taken from A Burden Shared: Encouragement for Those Who Lead, ©1991 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.