Maintaining Your Psychological Balance
Jim Smith
Pastors are caretakers, a characteristic of those who answer the call to ministry. We need to be needed. In that sense, perhaps we're all a little codependent, making caregiving an emotional hazard of our profession.
—Jim Smith
My prayer was neither theologically nor politically correct. With my green Chevy Vega idling at the corner of Mockingbird and Greenville in Dallas, Texas, I broke down. "Lord, I'm the only thing that stands between these people and hell," I prayed shamelessly. "They'll have to go to hell 'cause I'm going home. I quit."
When I had left the office that evening, my secretary had apprised me of my eight-month waiting list and the forty or so phone calls screaming for my attention. I was overwhelmed by it all, tyrannized and oppressed by the guilt. Playing the role of messiah had taken its toll. Like the lifeguard who gets pulled under while rescuing a drowning victim, my workaholism was dragging my own emotional health under water.
Pastors are susceptible to emotional fatigue. Yet the minister's emotional health is indispensable for effective counseling and longevity in the profession. Historically, pastors are caretakers. We need to be needed. And in that sense, perhaps we're all a little codependent, making caregiving an emotional hazard of our profession.
I've discovered since this crisis that the psychological hazards of counseling can be avoided. A meaningful and ongoing prayer life, of course, is the central element to a pastor's psychological health. Prayer not only puts our ministries into perspective, it is the means by which we are given divine strength and wisdom to do the work God has called us to.
In addition to prayer, I've found a few other practices also help.
Monitor Your Pulse
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