Editor’s Note: This microtalk is from SOLA Conference 2021. Find more resources and videos here.
Pastors get front-row seats to people changing, but they often become too busy, burdened, and blind to their own needs for change or to see the change happening in them. Pastor Harold Kim shares his own story of recovering from burnout and blindspots.
Below is a transcript of the microtalk. It has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the audio here.
Thank you all for listening to the SOLA Network. I’m Harold, one of the pastors on the SOLA Council. This is a very special privilege of mine, where I’m going to share some of my own story—a story of grace—if you will, with particular interest and a heart for fellow leaders and pastors, who are faithfully serving the Lord building up his church, and in many various ministries.
I’ll start by saying this: As pastors and leaders, I think most of us have come to believe that God changes lives. We’ve gotten to see it, feel it, witness it, celebrate it. It’s much of the reason why we sign up for this calling in the first place. God changes lives, indeed. And there’s no one else like God, through His Holy Spirit, because of his gospel, and Jesus Christ who changes lives.
But I have a confession to make: Although I get a front-row seat of God changing lives, so often I become too busy, too burdened, too troubled in here, and blind. I become blind to my own need for change or how God might be changing my life.
There’s a comedian on Saturday Night Live some time ago before the pandemic, and he joked, “Jesus made 12 brand new friends around the age of 30, ” and he went on to say, “That might have been one of his greatest miracles.” The joke is that the older you get, the harder to change. The comedian went on to say, “I don’t know anybody at the age of 30 who makes new friends, let alone 12 of them.”
In Philippians 1:5, Apostle Paul, however, announces, “I am confident or convinced of this one thing: that he—God—who began a good work in you, and in me, will complete it.” God completes. God finishes. He beautifies. He perfects any work that he has begun. So I just want to talk about two particular areas very briefly—my own story that’s taken place actually in this last year, 2020.
First, God is changing my life by taking time
God takes time. He changes lives by taking us through all kinds of things that need to happen with time. God is not bound by time. God masters all of time, God created time, he gives us time. He is much more mind-boggling than Christopher Nolan movies on time. I watched this Christopher Nolan movie titled Tenet, and it just gave me a headache, to be honest. I had to go read synopsis after synopsis because I could not understand it. It has to do with all of this interplay of time—past, present, and future—being all jumbled together. But I thank God, that He has much more mastery and actually much better purposes than any movie can.
I’m the type of person who doesn’t like long lines. I’m not looking forward to traffic that is resuming after the pandemic. Now, I don’t like—I can’t believe I’m saying this—overly crowded places. I don’t like unnecessarily long anything because I don’t want to waste any time. But it seems to me that with time, what God may be doing, that in the time that you and I are waiting, or in the times that you and I cannot even begin to comprehend why or how long this is happening to me or us, God is doing something. He’s always up to something redemptive, glorious, and true.
I took a five-month sabbatical. My church whom I love—they express their love to me in so many countless ways—gave me a five-month sabbatical August to the end of last year. And one of the books I picked up is by John Mark Comer titled The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry“. Here’s one of his observations.
“We hear the refrain, ‘I’m great, just busy.’ So often we assume pathological business is okay. After all, everybody else is busy too. But what if busyness isn’t healthy? What if it’s an airborne contagion wreaking havoc on our collective soul? Hurry is a form of violence to the soul.”
Hurry is a form of violence to the soul. Now, here’s how much of a hurry I’ve been in, as a pastor, a fellow worker for the kingdom. It took two to three months for the rest of my heart and my body to begin to relax. My head told me: It’s time to take a break; it’s a sabbatical. But it took time within that time just to begin to deeply exhale, unplug my whole mode of operation, just lay down some of that messianic mode that I know a lot of pastors fall into, and it took time for me to actually begin relaxing and resting and enjoying a sabbatical.
One of the other things I was recommended and provided by my church is that I began to see a counselor. Now counselors are hit or miss. But God sent one to me that speaks to my soul. Upfront, I thought, three to four sessions will do. August, September, be done, get it out of the way. I’m sure I’ll learn enough and process it and move on from there. But I’m still seeing him, and I look forward to every time I’m with him. We’re about 14, 15 sessions in, and with our church’s encouragement and blessing, I do not plan to stop anytime soon.
So often, my friends—and I know I’m speaking to so many of you—you feel it’s up to here. And you’re just surviving week after week because you don’t just gotta get a sermon done. You gotta do that marital counseling, you gotta finish that class, you gotta project a vision. And I know and I feel, dear brother and sister, what that feels like. But can I just suggest, with your church leadership, and with friends around you, for us to cultivate a much more rhythmic, paced lifestyle—even in ministry. Because after all, the longest and most repeated commandment God ever gave is about observing and keeping the Sabbath. We have to take time. Time off like Jesus Christ, where he withdrew.
Now, I don’t think we highlight this enough in the Gospels. There were so many times Jesus avoided and ran away from the crowds. He would jump on boats and make sure that disciples hurry down to the other side of the lake. Jesus took time to engage, to be active, to be full of the Spirit, to be full of joy and power—yes. But early in the morning and late into the night, so often you find him alone, seeking solitude. What is he doing? He’s taking time with his father, being loved by his father, being recharged, revealed. How much more do you and I need this? I’m just beginning to put this into practice in my personal life with my family, and with the church I love.
Here’s the second area where God has been changing me: All he’s been showing me is blind spots
This new Bible, from two or three years ago, is a very big font. I have to take my glasses to read this. I got a new iPad because my vision is getting worse and worse. But it’s comical. It’s really comical how people like myself can just go through all of life, all of our business, and all of our activity, and not see what’s right in front of our eyes.
There’s an episode in Mark 8:22-25. I’ll read it for us very quickly. And they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him—to Jesus—a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and let him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Notice Jesus takes a blind man aside. How conscientious and considerate Jesus is. This blind man has been somewhat of a spectacle to the crowds. He takes him away privately and performs his initial act of healing, which cures the blind man to a certain degree. But when asked, “Do you see anything,” the blind man is honest and humble enough to say, “I see people but they look like trees walking.” Self-aware, honest, humble. He says to Jesus, “I know you touched me. And I don’t know if you’re even expecting me to give you the right answer. But things are still blurry. They look like trees. It hasn’t come into sharp focus.” And lo and behold, you see that Jesus himself is never in a hurry. Sometimes he risks being accused of malpractice—even medically speaking, he lets people die because he’s so not in a hurry. And with this blind man who says, “I don’t think I could see everything clearly like I should,” Jesus touches him again. And then he’s able to see everything as he should.
Back to my own story. It was only when I began to take the time that there were all kinds of things that started to surface that I could talk about with closest friends, fellow pastors, and my counselor. And I realized that I have a very unhealthy relationship with work and time. I’m the type of person that doesn’t want to waste it. Ever. That’s why I don’t like long lines. This does not mean, “Oh, you must be the guy that always studies”—no, not at all. I just like to maximize my fun playtime, too. Live it up to the hilt.
I started to wonder why I did not have the healthy, normal, “Maximize your time, make the most use of it” as the Scriptures tell us—but I had this almost neurotic, obsessive drive, where if someone else should waste my time, or I waste yours, it really, really would set me off. It just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s almost like I can’t live with that.
In Genesis 4, God comes to an angry, jealous Cain because his brother’s sacrifice was acceptable and pleasing to God, but his sacrifice was not. And quote, here’s what God tells Cain. “Sin is crouching at the door.” Now here’s how God sees it. Here’s how God sees Cain’s sin. But just much more sobering, here’s how God sees my sin. Harold, there’s sin crouching at the door.
Do you notice the imagery—the figure there? Sin is always crouching. That means it’s always hiding. Sin is always seeking to go undercover. Sin wants to be minimized, excused, maybe even ignored. And so I saw, some effects of a huge life blind spot that I am trying to awaken from is in irritability, impatience—a demanding type of leadership or expectation that may bleed over into all areas of my life, a frustration that I cannot even hide when people don’t do things well on time, or they don’t do the most that they can with time. I’ve been blind, in so many ways, to the effects, the atmosphere, the culture, that that can create—the harm, the pain—because of a blind spot.
I’ll just close with one more thing. I think I haven’t reflected enough or been aware enough of its roots. I’ve been blind to my roots. The reason I became a pastor was that midway through college, my dad, after he had gone on a business trip to Siberia, came back and collapsed. Then he abruptly died from an aneurism.
I was 20 years old, taking a semester off from a school in NorCal. My dad had an unfulfilled dream of spreading and sharing the gospel—missions work through his business. And there I saw him die—October 1992. Through that moment, I actually perceived a call from God, to be able to carry out what my dad was never able to carry out. And so I actually felt, in a sense, to live a life that would be doubly worthwhile. To carry out a legacy, if you will, what my dad always wanted to do; to do what he couldn’t do, do what I could do, and live a productive, fruitful, worthwhile life, following Jesus, and speaking of his gospel, in missions.
Now, that is my natural nature and nurture. You combine that with the American Dream that was running rampant in the 1980s with immigrant families, where you want to live a meaningful, productive, non-wasted life. For immigrant families, trying to avoid that is like an alcoholic who lives underneath a bar in the United States of America. You add on top of that, I sense this is a calling from God. God wants me to do this for the rest of my life. But it wasn’t until last year, that even within the origins of me becoming a pastor, that I was seeing how much fear and inadequacy lies down there all the way down to the roots.
So for instance, if I don’t live a productive, fruitful, impactful life for the kingdom, it’s almost as if my brain and my heart told me—telling me nonstop—his death wasn’t worth it. Or, your life hasn’t been worthy. I was hit by a quote by Carl Jung, I do not endorse his theology, all of his views—but boy, it hit me. “Neurosis is the avoidance of legitimate suffering. All neurotic addictive behavior may be because we’re just avoiding the real pain down there at its roots.” He goes on to say, “To avoid the pain, we develop neurotic coping mechanisms. We self medicate, we blame, we distract ourselves, we avoid, we pretend.”
Life is going to hurt at times, and if you try to avoid the hurt, you will often bring more hurt than the actual hurt. Especially now I speak to those in positions of servant leadership—those of you who are actually so bright, sharp, and gifted, and you have so much influence, your platform is large and expanding. My friend, if you avoid the root hurt, if you are blind to the roots of the things that you are avoiding and running from, you and I, it can bring more hurt, more hurt, more hurt than the actual hurt that we’re running from.
The gospel tells me that in my calling and in my life, with my family first and my friends and the church, I should carry it out with a sense of security and identity that has been received. I’m not trying to earn it. A sense of love, overflowing joy. Certainly, I’m not saying this should be happening all the time. None of us are Jesus. But I have found it. So much of my pastoral life has been marked by different fruit, different results, and different drives right down at the roots. You know, it’s because I kept trying to tell myself, “Because my dad died early—because my dad died early—you had better make the most of your time and leave a worthy, fruitful life.” And I’ve been trying to carry out that legacy much more, unfortunately. And because of my My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—because he died so early for me. I’ve been trying to honor the memory, the legacy of my own earthly father rather than my Heavenly Father, who sent his own son, and he who died so early for me, tells me, and he tells you: “There’s nothing to add. There’s nothing more to prove. There’s nothing more to give. Because I have given and poured myself out entirely for you.”
So therefore, you and I, we could actually take some time. I know it’s a radical, crazy move. Time off of work. Time off of that thing you love. And, you and I don’t have to be so afraid of looking down into the blind spots that have always been there. Can I encourage you, dear brother and sister? So much of what God has been doing in my life is, he has been taking me down to the roots and helping me see its effects. So follow that road. Follow that road when you get so angry. Follow down that road when you’re filled with regrets and shame. Follow the road when you’re so neurotically upset, you can’t sleep. Why can you not sleep over that? Follow it down—the road of your secrets. Your darkest, repeated sins: Follow it all the way down.
Do you know why you can follow it all the way down? Because Jesus has already seen it. He loves you still. He died and got up to set you free from it. To set you free from it. Jesus asked you, “What do you see?” What do you see? Please don’t say, “I see everything clearly.” No. You can start to say, “I see things better than I did before, but I don’t see it all. I see people; they look like trees, walking.” But our Jesus is so gracious, so true and faithful. He wastes no time and he’ll help us to see. And when you and I see, maybe it’s no longer going to be the blind leading the blind. But, “Ah, I see a little better now. I see a little further now. I see a little bit more clearly about myself.” And then, maybe, people who come around us and follow us might be able to see better for themselves as well.
Amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved the wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found. I was blind but now I see.
For more resources from SOLA Conference 2021, click here.