Sometimes my brain betrays me. I don’t want to be analytical all the time; it just gravitates towards such things without my permission! I think maybe it’s a little like E.T., the Extraterrestrial, wanting to phone home, only my brain’s “home” is a place where complexity lives. The rest of me longs for days where I can turn my brain off and just be content with nothing much to think about.
If you know anything about psychosomatics, as the brain goes, so often goes the body. In other words, when a person’s brain can’t seem to drop into low gear for the night, the body responds by remaining in a type of fight-or-flight mode, tenser than it ought to be. I’m convinced that’s why I must exercise regularly – it expends all the pent-up energy my body is storing from a brain that won’t shut off. It helps me sleep, too.
My secular work doesn’t help matters, either, because it involves solving complex technical problems for customers, which helps enable them to enjoy a prosperous future. In other words, my mind is forced to contemplate the complexities of business scenarios that don’t even exist yet. I spend much of my time in the “what if” space, running scenarios and considering probable outcomes.
The human brain is often described as a “muscle,” and muscles tend to have memories. Ever seen the arm of a professional arm-wrestler? It’s goofy-looking because it’s stuck in a flexed position, where specialized training over years has shortened the muscles in order to maximize success at the competition table. I believe the human brain is like that – it likes to stay in the mode where it spends most of its time because that “place” has become its norm. Ever hold something really heavy for a while, and after you put it down, your hand is stuck in the flexed position? Yeah, my brain is like that after a full day of “flexing”.
So, for a guy like me, whose secular and ministerial jobs require constant deep thought and analysis (yes, teaching Biblical doctrines as a pastor significantly taxes the brain, also), it’s a challenge to get my brain to relax and just enjoy the simple life (If you suffer similarly, I recommend you read The Simple Life, With a View). There must be a strategy I can employ to avoid succumbing to a life completely dominated by mental exhaustion, right? Thank God, there is!
I think about it this way…
We know from Holy Scripture that we’re called to work hard as unto the Lord, so we can’t just throw in the towel on the good labor the Lord has given us to perform every day, to His glory.
Regarding secular work:
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
– Colossians 3:23-24
Regarding ministry work:
For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
– 1 Corinthians 9:16-27
Again, the solution to our “brain issues” cannot be at the expense of the good labor the Lord has given us to do. If our jobs require our brains to exercise deep, complex, often critical thinking for extended periods of time, then so be it. We just need to afford ourselves some time to “stretch out” after a hard “workout”. This will relieve us of compounded stress, giving our “brain muscles” a well-deserved break. It’s what we do in our downtime that helps us recover.
Here’s what the Bible gives us. First, it begins with perspective. Although we are to work hard as unto the Lord at whatever our hands find to do (1 Corinthians 15:58; 2 Thessalonians 3:12), we are to hand over the outcomes to the Lord, meaning we simply do our duty by working hard and leave the rest up to the Lord. This allows us to unplug our brains from the sources of stress we manage while at work. The key point is simple:
We mustn’t allow ourselves to be preoccupied with the future status of our work projects once our workday ends. We need to leave our work “at the office” and turn our attention to the blessings the Lord has given us to enjoy, for as long as we have them!
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
– Ecclesiastes 3:1
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
– Psalm 128:2
Our ability to rest depends upon our ability to hand over the reins to the Lord at the end of our workdays. He owns all outcomes, after all.
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
– Psalm 127:1-2
We mustn’t conflate the thinking, planning, and mental solution-building we do for work with God’s decree. Please let that sink in, remembering that God is sovereign and controls all history (we do not – Colossians 1:17). If you abide in this reality, you’re already most of the way there (e.g., your brain can start to relax and enjoy the simple things in life). While the Bible teaches us that we can, indeed, enjoy our work while performing it (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20), we aren’t married to it. In other words, we have the God-given right to leave our jobs and all the mental heavy lifting at the jobsite. This is a skill that, even at my age, I haven’t yet mastered (I’m better, but the struggle is real!).
I think a nice way to think about this is as a daily strategy where we strive to “be present” in the moment. If we’re working, then we dedicate ourselves to the task at hand. Likewise, if we’re done with our workday, then we dedicate ourselves to enjoying God’s blessings, leaving tomorrow up to the Lord, as Jesus once summarized, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself” (Matthew 6:34). This was Jesus’ way of saying, “Never forget that My Dad has the future under control – don’t you spend another moment today worrying about that – you just focus on being present, living in the ‘now’” (ref: Matthew 6:25-34)! Being present in the “now” implies several dimensions, only one of which is our work (I recommend you read last week’s blog, if you have not already, for additional encouragement: Being Available Versus Being Present).
I guess I’ll end this blog with just a little more of my own perspective. I think about two futures: the one which my human brain thinks about when I’m working hard to make my customers successful for the long term (which is what I get paid to do) and another, absolute future that lies entirely in the realm of God’s sovereign decree (which I cannot sway no matter how hard my brain labors at it). We mustn’t conflate man’s perspective of the future with God’s. In the grand scheme of things, life is best when we leave tomorrow up to the Lord and enjoy our blessings today – this both pleases and glorifies the Lord.
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins