it's interesting how hard it can get - feels like waddling thru water, feels like breathing thickly polluted air... many times i caught myself wishing i was back in Bethel where the sky is clear and heaven is near, where the unseen is tangible and anything is possible, where it felt like being in a bubble, untouched and untouchable. then i had wanted out. then i had yearned for a battle, for a challenge to test my mettle.
now, out of breath and out of gas. it's barely been round one!
to be fair to myself i have had my victories since coming back: camps, speaking engagements, dreams, visitations, travels in the physical and spiritual, sozos, breaking off stuff etc. but really, it's barely round one!

i m getting used to "pastor". it's a bane and a boon at the same time. it is interesting how conversations have changed to a great extent. they have taken a problem-focused mode. whenever people talk to me, they see someone they can bring their problems to and find help, assurance, healing, faith, encouragement, edification - a pastoral concern needing pastoral ministry. the title has changed a normal friend, co-congregant into some sort of God's mini-superman. 

on the other hand, it bestows some sort of legitimacy and authority to the office to facilitate the call and the work. it really is humbling. it does facilitate building a kingdom culture, a culture of honour. 

i have learnt to receive honour and respond better to it. 

i have learnt self-control, learnt communication, learnt to love and pursue, learnt greater awareness.
i have learnt to say "no" so my "yes-es" can be better, stronger, more effective.
i have learnt that some things can be claimed and gotten here and now, others have to a process to be walked through. wisdom is in knowing which is which.
i have realised friends are gifts. i have had many, such that i had taken lots for granted. but i have learnt to take stock and hold dear, to fight for, not neglect.
i have learnt and resolved not to condescend but to lift the other up.
i will resolve to commit to the fight and know that it really isn't a fight in that it has already been won. thus a fight in rest. not a fight to rest. it's not a paradox; it is the true way and we have gotten it muddled up in the first place.
i resolve to live on supernatural hope and perspective.
i resolve to choose to love and bring up in faith.
i resolve to declare and live the truth for Truth lives in me.
i resolve to continually draw from my Home, my Source, my Strength, my Joy, my Love. (home is not a place as much as it is a Person.)
i resolve to not let ministry distract me from my Muse.