After many years of good health and ministry, a little over 8 years ago, I began experiencing symptoms that caused great concern to my family. These included migraine headaches, nausea, chest pains, insomnia, lost focus, emotional instability, etc.
Eventually, at my wife’s insistence, I agreed to undergo a battery of tests to pinpoint the problem. With my wife by my side I returned to my doctor’s office to receive the fateful news. At his initial comment I didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry.
He said, “Well Pastor, for a man of your age the tests show that you are in good physical condition.” For a man of my age, what does that mean? And how could that be true, given how I was feeling at the time? “Then if my problem is not physiological, what is it,” I replied. The doctor’s response to that inquiry sent me reeling in such a way I have not gotten over it nearly a decade later. He explained that in his qualified opinion I was a victim of overwork, stress, and burnout, all of which had led to a classic case of clinical depression.
“Depression,” I cried. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He assured me that he was serious, and that how I responded to this condition would set the course for the rest of my life and ministry.
His prescription, aside from certain drugs, was to leave town and return only when I was prepared to adjust my schedule and way of looking at life and ministry. “How long might that take,” I asked. He replied, “That’s up to you, Pastor. If you want to keep up your calling for years to come, you’ll need a major mental overhaul now.”
My wife and I left town as quickly as we could, and during the time away I came face-to-face with myself, maybe for the first time ever. A good old-fashioned look in the mirror is both healthy and humbling. To see one’s self rightly is the start of something life-shaking. Of course, this kind of seeing comes only from gazing at our image as it is reflected from the mirror of the Word.
“The unexamined life is not worth living,” so said the ancient philosopher. But it must be something more than a simple manly, fleshly self-study. We must risk becoming vulnerable before that face of God who knows us better than we can possibly know ourselves.
To face myself I had to ask the hard questions. Why hadn’t my faith been strong enough to bear me through stressful times? What had caused the stress, and its inherent symptoms? How must my work for God and my life with God be altered? I didn’t know if I was up to it, but I knew that my life and ministry, my wife and children, my joy and peace depended upon an absolutely honest look into the depths of my soul.