I’m not a big Pink Floyd fan. In fact, I find most 70s rock to be self-indulgent. I get that you want to jam for 13 minutes, but I’d prefer to hear a new song. So this post definitely isn’t about Pink Floyd or any other structure erected my humans.
The title of this post doesn’t reference an actual wall, but one that hits almost as hard.
Today is Thursday of junior high camp. Thursday at junior high camp tends to be a wall for me. By the time Thursday rolls around I’m tired, I’m cranky, I miss my wife, I’m sick of the same three jokes the boys have made all week and I’m ready to go home. The hard part with junior high camp, though, is that home is still over 48 hours away. We have all of today, all of tomorrow and then a 7-hour trip home.
Thursday is a wall.
Knowing that Thursday is a wall, though, should help me handle it better. I know that I’m going to be tired, I know that I’m going to be cranky and I know that I’m going to want to go home. So I should know to invite Jesus into those moments and ask him to sustain me. I should ask the Holy Spirit to change my mindset and improve my attitude. Even though I know I should do those things, sometimes I just want to run headfirst into the wall.
There’s a certain type of joy that comes from embracing our bad attitudes. I often enjoy putting on my cranky pants and letting people have it. It takes way more effort to push through the wall and climb over it than it does to just keep running into it. So even though I know I should scale the wall, it’s easier not to.
Which is why I need to turn to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Because on my own, I’m just going to give into whatever’s easiest. Unfortunately doing what’s easiest will put me in a bad attitude and negatively impact my ability to minister to our students. They don’t need a cranky pants youth pastor who only wants to yell at them. They need a loving adult who wants what’s best for them. If I keep running into the wall then I won’t be loving and I won’t be focused on our students. But if I can turn to Jesus and trust in the power of the Holy Spirit, then I can make it over the wall.
I’ll be able to take off my cranky pants and put on my investing in young people pants.
What helps you get over walls?
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