How often have you experienced a day when you just felt like you were floundering? Maybe one event led to another, which caused you to get off track. Maybe your intentions kept getting interrupted. Maybe something or someone caused a disturbance in your routine, and you just fumbled any attempt to make forward progress.
It can be difficult to reset and recover from a day of floundering. For some, sometimes a day turns into a week and could even linger into a season. I pray you might have some strategies to help you move from a day of floundering into a day of flourishing.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus prays for his disciples before his arrest in the garden. Jesus knows there will be harm, struggle, and suffering.
Jesus knows there will be betrayal and brokenness.
So in the midst of all the storms brewing, within the pending darkness, Jesus prays this beautiful prayer for his disciples, asking the Father to protect them, just as Jesus guarded them, and not one was lost. Jesus prays that the disciples may have my joy made complete in them. And then in verse 20, Jesus includes you and me in his prayer, connecting the work of the disciples who will share the good news for those who will believe in me through their word.
Even with all the floundering going on around Jesus, he took the time to pray for the disciples to flourish.
With a nod to our friends at the Duke Clergy Health Initiative, I offer these practices which can help clergy – and perhaps all of us – to flourish*:
- Partnering with God’s Work: Flourishing clergy focus on working in alignment with God.
- Intentionality Around Health Behaviors: Flourishing clergy are proactive and flexible in taking care of their physical and mental health.
- Creating Boundaries: Flourishing clergy are intentional about setting boundaries around their work lives and their personal lives.
- Social Support: Flourishing clergy nourish friendships and mutual relationships.
I encourage you to consider these holy habits, which might assist in our efforts to stay in love with God and with others. A love which Jesus shares in his closing words of his prayer:
I made your name known to them, and I will make it known,
so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them
and I in them.
John 17:26
Blessings,
David
*Read additional insights from the Flourishing Report→
photo credit – David Blackman