This has been an awful night. I’ve been reminded of a principle through considerable physical and emotional distress.

God gives us wonderful gifts for use in serving others and building His Kingdom. One of mine is the ability to become “hyperfocused” on a specific project, goal or pursuit. When I was younger, I used to refer to this ability as having a “sixth gear.”

Because of the way in which I’m wired, I can drive myself pretty hard when focused on a mission… especially a mission as important as the one our team has with Key Ministry. After all, service can be worship when done for the purpose of honoring God.

The problem is that while God is honored by our acts of service, what He wants more than our service is a relationship with us. It’s easy for each of us to be caught up in our self-sufficiency…in our workplaces, caring for a child with a disability…that God often finds the need to get our attention by coming after and taking away an area of strength to remind us of the need to not just do for Him, but to seek Him.

It’s too easy to rely on ourselves for way too long and to run all kinds of stop signs in the course of trying to “do” for God. In my case, ignoring admonitions to rest has brought me to the point at which whatever capacity I had to self-regulate emotion is pretty much shot. I should know better.

Looking for the pony in the pile of you-know-what, I started thinking about what might help the parents and families in my practice and those served by our Key Ministry crew when they get to this point. One can look in the Bible at Job’s friends and figure out what not to do. Something I thought might be helpful to folks when they get to the end of their physical or emotional strength are reminders of the impact they’ve had through their service, along with relief from a burden so they can rest.

God WILL give us more than we can handle because He wants for us to have a relationship with Him more than anything else and often, the only way He can get our attention for long enough to do that is to render us helpless.