Category Archives: Tree of Life

Tree of Life

Tree of Life - Part 1

Can I Have Hope Again?

Spiritual burnout is a humbling experience. You are not only worn out physically, mentally and emotionally, you also have lost much of your hope and your ideals. You are well past over-engagement and over-reactive emotions, and now your blunted emotions are taking you further into disengagement.

You are now demoralized, depressed, and disillusioned. You might even be angry with God. In your growing state of helplessness and hopelessness you may have questions like these: “Will I ever have hope again?” “Will I ever trust God again as much as before?” “Am I ever going to get my zeal back again?” “I don’t even feel like going to church. Will that change in time?”

At Smoldering Wick Ministries we want to befriend you and help you in the direction of healing. One of the best ways we know to do just that, is to disciple you in “Tree of Life” living and ministry. By helping you plunge into the Tree of Life we will be helping place you in a position where the Holy Spirit can do His deep inner healing. Whether you ever return to the ministry will ultimately be your decision, but with healing from burnout and a sound life-giving approach to life and ministry, the desire to return to your calling may become strong again.

Your zeal, however, will be tempered by your wisdom and experience. No longer will youthful idealism that is exaggerated set you up for disappointment. No longer will insecurity haunt you as a ministry leader. No longer will you take people’s freedom away and try to make them over in your own image. No longer will you try to solve everyone’s problems yourself. No longer will you be driven to frustration by hard-to-get-along-with people.

We all love God with our whole hearts. Some of us, however, have loved and served God with an incorrect approach that has hurt us and our followers. If we are left disillusioned by our experience in the ministry, it is because we first believed in an illusion!

At Smoldering Wick Ministries we have free tapes, articles, and counseling to take away the illusions, and introduce people to the Tree of Life (Jesus). We also promote a number of books designed to educate leaders in the direction of the Tree of Life and a sound healing relationship with our Lord Jesus. Check out all these resources at the Smoldering Wick Website.

Kathy and I slaved away for twenty years, ministering in a legalistic denomination where the underlying operating system was fear and control. God in His infinite wisdom brought three people into our lives that changed our whole approach to life and ministry. Malcolm Smith, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, taught us the fallacy of legalism and religion, and introduced us to Father’s unconditional love in a way we had never understood it before.

While this mind and heart opening process with Malcolm was occurring, we met Ted Haggard for the first time. What impacted us powerfully was Pastor Ted’s way of thinking. It was about as far from our legalistic denomination as you can get. He was filled with love and encouragement. His views were optimistic, and truly life-giving. We were learning a whole new way of thinking! After moving to Colorado, we were introduced to Dr. Larry Crabb, all the pieces fell together and great inner healing continued in our spirits. This booklet is a compilation of what we learned through our burnout after 23 years in the ministry, and what we learned through the healing process. We hope, with Father’s grace and blessing, that this information will help you heal and, further, help prepare you for a ministry with the Tree of Life as the modus operandi.

We will begin with a look at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and see how this tree can mislead even the most sincere ministry leader. What happens when we are operating out of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Then we will take a close look at what the Tree of Life is all about, and what an incredible difference in thinking and living this tree makes in our lives. We hope you will read and study this booklet several times and plunge yourself into the Tree of Life in your personal life, family life, and your future ministry as God reveals what that will be. God bless you, and please do use your burnout as a launch pad into a brighter, properly fulfilling future.

Tree of Life

C.S. Lewis & Keeping First Things First?

Jesus told us his yoke was easy and his burden was light! Why do so many burned-out people feel the weight of the Milky Way Galaxy on their shoulders? When we get God given passions out of proper order, the easy yoke and light burden of Jesus doesn’t make sense. When we have the order of our passion correct, and live it out daily, we can have the strength and peace of mind the scriptures speak of.

C.S. Lewis felt the greatest battle we ever face as followers of Jesus is keeping first things first. But we have so many passions. We want a good job with a big paycheck, a happy marriage, children that grow up to be respectful decent citizens. We want good health and healing when we are sick. We want this, that, and the other blessing or piece of materialism. All of these - mostly normal daily desires - are second place passions. As long as they remain second place passions, we have half a chance at being content.

Our first place passion should be a closer communion with God. When our first place passion is leading us, we can endure and even be content in any of life’s peaks and valleys.

In pre-history there was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the triune Godhead, enjoying fellowship, love and joy together. In the spirit dimension this level of communion is beyond anything we may have experienced in the created realm. It is so wonderful that if we, as followers of the Lord Jesus, even taste a hint of this communion, we are overwhelmed by the experience. It is God’s plan to bring us step by step into that spiritual communion and joy. That’s the goodnews! That’s the Gospel. But, for some reason (like the teaching of a false gospel) we desire this life to be filled with joy and happiness - all the time. We become very disillusioned when life doesn’t work the way the preacher promised!

In Romans 7:6 we are told we no longer live by the old way of the written code, but by the new way of the spirit. I have heard much preaching in the past thirty years that promoted a New Testemant version of the old written code. “Just get in line with God and blessings start to flow. Just walk in holiness and God will give you your heart’s desire. Please God and He will bless you abundantly.”

When these many promises based on the old written code of “please God and you will be blessed” don’t come to pass as expected, the follower can become disheartened and disillusioned.

Hebrews 7:18-19 says, “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.”

Strong language don’t you think? The old way - the covenant based on performance - get it right all the time and I will bless you, but, fail once and you, your family, your flocks and herds will be cursed - is called weak and useless! Wow. The writer of Hebrews wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was. But notice what the next part of the scripture says. We have a better hope, not better blessings, but, a better hope. The hope of deep communion with God now that the Holy of Holies is open to all of us!

It is a wonderful hope to have in a world that can seem hopeless. People who live the performance based life, always looking for something - to make them happy and fulfilled - often end up weary with life itself. Our hope is a better hope. We keep our eyes fixed on heavenly things, and we allow every experience in life - good and bad - to help us draw near to God. Being in His presence, and enjoying God is our greatest blessing!

C.S. Lewis knew we often let second things creep up into first place. We then become frustrated when those second place dreams don’t always work out. But if we keep first place passion for communion with God in first place, we can learn to be content with whatever life throws at us.

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth.(Col.3:1-2 NLT).

This is a big subject that we can’t cover indepth in a brief article, but please do give some thought and prayer to whether you have brought on some of your own pain and disillusionment by displacing your first place passion with a second place desire. Refocus and point your life back in a direction where fellowshipping with God is the greatest joy of your life.

Let’s end with a quote from Dr. Larry Crabb: “When we live with no higher goal than to make this life work, whether through therapy, accountability, post-modern freedom, evangelical Christianity, or Catholic spirituality, we fight the wrong battle. And that’s the battle most of modern church is fighting! We’ve lost our unique message, the bright colors of radical Christianity have gone beige, we offer merely a religious method for pursuing the same goal that godless culture esteems. We chase after second things, believing the lie that the blessings of God (second things) will feed our souls when the truth is that only His presence (the first thing) can do the job.” - Larry Crabb.

Tree of Life

David, Jonathan, and the New Covenant

Blood covenants are serious business. The modern western world understands little about blood covenants. The blood covenant is binding. It is the basis of the very relationship we have with God. If we are totally grounded in the blood covenant, we can withstand anything.

The nation of Israel wanted to be like other nations. They wanted a physical King they could see and follow. They wanted something more tangible than an invisible God. God comforted Samuel, and told him the people where rejecting Him, not Samuel. The people chose a King named Saul. This was the people vote. God out, Saul in. God chooses a King named David, the shepherd boy. We now have the foundation for a great story. Two different families chosen to be the Kingly line! Power struggle, intrigue, drama, human emotion, it’s all there.

But this is a story about a blood covenant from which we may all gain strength and great comfort. It is a story about Father’s love for us, and the positive future we have regardless how dark the present is.

David loves God. Jonathan is from the family of Saul, but thinks so differently from the rest of the family. He loves God in a similar way to David. David and Jonathan make a covenant (1 Sam. 18:1-4). There is a oneness between them that is a taste of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps they cut their right arms and brought the wounds together and let the blood mingle. It is a covenant of deep love between them.

Many events unfold and there is a time when Saul is out to kill David. Jonathan comes to David and expands the covenant to include their future generations (1 Sam. 20:14-15). The blood covenant between David and Jonathan will endure all the horror to come. Later in 1 Samuel 23:16-17, Jonathan comes a third time to David and carries out a gesture that is a magnificent example to us all. He comes before his beloved friend, David, and states clearly that David will be King, and Jonathan will be David’s prince. Jonathan is next in line in the family of Saul to be King over Israel! But Jonathan is in harmony with God, and humbles himself before David. The covenant between them is a beautiful thing.

For Saul and Jonathan the end comes in a war with the Philistines. David becomes King proper, and rules the nation. During the final moments of Saul’s kingdom, the family is fleeing and the nurse maid running with Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, stumbles and drops him. He is crippled in both legs from a very early age.

Time passes. Mephibosheth is fed endless lies about David. With his grandfather Saul died, and his father, Jonathan dead, Mephibosheth is heir to the throne of Israel from the family viewpoint. Mephibosheth is fed all kinds of terrible lies of David stealing the throne and other made up evils. Mephibosheth lives on the edge of David’s Kingdom, probably carrying out acts of destruction against the Kingdom.

A day comes when David desires to express his covenant love to any living descendants of his good friend, Jonathan. He finds out where Mephibosheth is dwelling and heads out to meet him. Picture the scene, with David and his men coming across the landscape on their horses, and Mephibosheth watching them approach. In Mephibosheth’s mind he must be considering it his last fifteen minutes on earth. All he knows about David are the lies. He is expecting David to wipe out the last of Saul’s family. In the next ten minutes David’s sword will be thrust through Mephibosheth’s vitals.

Consider the shock of Mephibosheth as David explains he has kept all the land, flocks, herds, and money of Saul and Jonathan for this very moment when he could pass it on to Mephibosheth! Not only that, but Mephibosheth is invited to King David’s table to dine with him for the rest of his life! What? Why?

Blood covenant. Perhaps David explained to a dumbfounded Mephibosheth the terms of the covenant made between David and Jonathan before Mephibosheth was even conceived. David may have explained the fact there was nothing Mephibosheth could do. He couldn’t earn it, pay for it, qualify for it. Nothing at all, but simply say, thank you, Lord. The blood covenant was intact. It’s terms and conditions were valid and he could not pay or earn the reward.

Mephibosheth now had a choice. Reject the incredible love of the blood covenant, take his chances being a troublemaker in David’s kingdom, and end up dead, or, accept the love in the blood covenant and allow it to pour into his heart and change him from the inside out.

It was all a bit much for Mephibosheth, and he openly considerered himself a dog.

It is a wonderful truth what covenant love can do. Mephibosheth, the terrorist, allows the covenant love in David’s heart to pour into his, and in a very real sense Mephibosheth enters into the very spirit of his father, Jonathan. He takes on a love for David like Jonathan had. It is a miracle. Mephibosheth’s mind and heart change. The spirit of Jonathan starts to lead his son Mephibosheth, and he begins to love David. Mephibosheth in Jonathan and Jonathan in Mephibosheth.

You in Jesus, and Jesus in you. There is nothing we can do. The blood covenant was made through the Lord Jesus long before we were conceived in our mother’s womb, and we are the inheritors. Any gospel that demanded from you and held up expectations to you that you were never able to reach - that was another gospel, not The Gospel.

There are many factors involved in your burn-out. Please do yourself a favor. Relax. Forgive those who hurt you. Stop worrying about not living up to your calling as a ministry leader. Relax. There is nothing you can do to win back people or God. God has never left you. He may be taking you out into the desert right now, and you may be there a reasonably long time. Relax, don’t worry or fret. He made a blood covenant with you before you were born and He will live up to it. Everything painful happening to you right now is for your good in the long run. Just relax and leave it to Him. Focus on Jesus like you did when you were first called and enjoy his fellowship. Eat at the King’s table, and relax.

Tree of Life

The True Gospel

When I look back at my 23 years of pastoring, I can’t help but ask, “Why did I burn out? Where did I get off the track?” I was planning on pastoring all of my life, and never expected to crash and be terminated. Part of the answer is found in understanding the true Gospel.

The Gospel, the good news of eternal salvation. The good news about us spending eternity with God in heaven. Wow! The good news about a Kingdom where there will be no pain, no sorrow, no tears, no sickness, no disease, no evil, no death. Awesome! The Gospel is the best news in history, and it is so positive and encouraging, I just love it! So . . . if I knew the Gospel, and thought I was living in the light of the Gospel, how did I and 25,000 other ministry leaders per year burnout? Good question.

The Gospel gives us the love of God poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). The Gospel introduces me to the greatest love my mind and heart have ever tried to comprehend. The Gospel makes it possible for me to experience joy inexpressible (1 Peter 1:8), and inextinguishable (2 Cor. 6:9-10). The Gospel lets me experience the peace of God which surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7). When it comes to living life, the Gospel is the whole message of this life (Acts 5:20). The unadulterated Gospel is the message of eternal life (John 6:68). With the true Gospel I have passed from death into life (1 John 3:14). These are a few of the descriptions of the true Gospel, and not one of them is descriptive of a burned-out, bottomed out church leader!

So, if the Gospel I was living in was exhausting me and causing me disillusionment, it must have been an altered version. A distorted gospel sprinkled with religion, and in my case, one containing legalism. My thoughts return to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. After three years with Jesus nearly 24/7, they still had a distorted view of the Gospel. When their expectations were not met, they tumbled into disillusionment and bewilderment. The setting up of inaccurate expectations is something we do easily.

When we look at the people Jesus really gets upset with in the Gospel accounts, it is the religious leaders of the day. The leaders responsible for putting inaccurate expectations into peoples’ hearts. The leaders who were teaching people a message of acceptance by performance. Jesus doesn’t get upset with the lost or wounded. He becomes their friend, and savior!

I also believe what we read, watch or hear from sources other than sermons also can put inaccurate expectations into our hearts. Many times, it may simply be our own dreaming that gives us a wrong viewpoint. We want life to work our way, and God may have another plan. We have our dreams and goals and we want God to cooperate and help make those dreams come to pass. When He doesn’t, we get upset.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19 NKJV)

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read this passage from Isaiah, was He only referring to setting people free from sin and death? Can we also apply this description of His ministry in terms of freeing people from religion, legalism, moralism, and inaccurate expectations about the God of love? In Matthew 9:36, Jesus is moved deeply with compassion for the people who are like sheep without a shepherd. These were the people laboring under the burden of religion - religion Pharisee style. Jesus wept for people like these.

Have you and I as ministry leaders also labored under such circumstances? Please do examine the gospel you anchored your life to. What do you really believe after all the shouting and amens end? Unfulfilled expectations have caused more heartache on this planet than almost any other source of pain.

Tree of Life

Tremendous Spiritual Growth

Often total burnout is accompanied by mental and emotional frustration. Add to that feelings of betrayal, bitterness toward those who may have attacked you, and a growing disillusionment with the church.

However, this is also a time of tremendous spiritual growth. When we crash down, a burning hulk, smoking like a flax, realizing the failures, weaknesses, and helplessness, we are on the threshold of the greatest growth of our lives to date. It is a wonderful chance to simply give up in a greater way then ever before, and let God do His thing in our lives. It is a chance to toss out all the church politics, man-made traditions, feigned worship, and other denominational baggage, and just get back to spending all the time we want with the Lord Jesus.

It becomes a time of deep soul searching, re-thinking, and the start of a whole new walk with Jesus that we lost somewhere at seminary, or in denominational ladder climbing. Now you can get back to relishing the simple truths of Jesus and salvation. Back to the way it was when we were first called and overcome by the love of Father as He drew us to Jesus.

During this time, do yourself a favor and drop ALL expectations regarding the church, your denomination, and the friends you have had. If there are some who contact you and wish to love and pray for you, rejoice in this, but don’t expect it. If it happens, hallelujah! If it doesn’t, realize you are not some odd ball. Most burned-out or terminated pastors experience an immediate loss of friends in the ministry, and at times downright rejection from church members.

When it comes to pastor friends, realize many are scared. Your fall or burnout is a test of great reality. They need to withdraw into the facade they have been living in to try and shut out the harsh reality of this world, and the state of the church. They are scared what happened to you can easily happen to them! The truth is - it can!

Many of your friends forget Abraham was a lying coward of a husband for Sarah. Moses spent forty years training to lead his church of three million. Of the three million, two individuals made it into the promised land! David was an adulterer, and considered a super failure according to man’s reasoning. God had other things to say about David. Elijah had great egotistical dreams of launching the greatest revival in history at Mt. Carmel, and became so depressed and disillusioned after it failed to meet his expectations that he ran away to the desert and convinced himself he was the only one serving God! Saul, then Paul, was a hardliner that needed to learn patience and grace, and did from the hard knocks of life and from men like Barnabas. Peter, the guy who really didn’t know himself or human nature, needed to learn some lessons the hard, hard way. He even had to be corrected to his face later by Paul! Then there is Jesus. The man who pastored a church of twelve, and lost one!

The powerful test your friends face is found in Luke 10. The example of the Good Samaritan. It is the classic test of Christianity, which we deal with in another article at Smoldering Wick. The point I want to make here is, Jesus has never given up on you, and is working very closely with you. Your pastoral friends may have disappeared, but Jesus has not. You are being humbled, and closely guided by Jesus right now, and you will be a far better person in the end. Jesus loves working with the broken, and hates the proud. Just relax and let Him do His work in you, like he did with so many “failures” over the past two thousand years. He knows the rejection you feel, He has felt it also, from the same type of people that have rejected you! He will never leave you. God bless you in the great work Jesus is doing in you and will do through you.

Burnout, Tree of Life

Blessings - The Lubricant of American Christianity

As a Canadian living in America I never cease to be amazed how blessing and success oriented American Christianity is. We all understand the roots of America and the focus on freedom. It is a story to inspire free people and wanna-be free people of all nations. It is a story nothing short of the working of God in carrying out His destiny on this earth.

But the focus of success and the American Dream seems so blatant and overwhelming, it has become a part of the American version of the Gospel. For some time now it has appeared to me that Christianity as it is practiced in the western world is simply another, more sophisticated form of selfishness. Just do the right thing - the will of God - and you will be blessed beyond measure. If things are not going well - more money, better job - maybe you are not doing something right.

Having listened to dozens of success preachers, health and wealth gospel preachers, blessings preachers, I stop and I think about some of the heroes of scripture, and ponder what incredible failures they were compared to what the American success preacher says you should be.

I then wonder how much of this mis-direction contributes to burnout in the ministry. I also wonder how much of this mis-thinking contributes to few American ministers admitting they are disillusioned and burning out. We get many emails and phone calls from all over the world every week, but few of them are from American pastors. We hear from wives of American pastors, children of American pastors, friends of American pastors - but few American pastors can bring themselves to say - help! After all, John Wayne would never ask for help, would he?

“Seek first the Kingdom,” my Bible tells me, “and all these things will be given to you as well.” The focus is God, not money, God, not material success, God, not church growth and your photo in Charisma or Christianity Today, God, not a big house, God, not a successful business.

If God makes you the second most powerful man in Egypt - awesome. If God asks you to live out your life as an old man on the isle of Patmos with stale food and poor sleeping conditions, awesome! But let God be your focus, and don’t get sucked into the endless dream of a better life right here and now. A better life of blessings that will disappoint and help contribute to burnout.

If you haven’t read Larry Crabb’s book, “The Pressures Off,” get a copy and read it three times minimum. You will never be the same, but you will have a better direction whether you be rich or poor - you will be closer to God.