Be responsible for your people; don't be responsible for your people / 1

I kinda hit a wall there, towards the end of last year (all of seven days ago it would have been "the end of this year"). I think I've nutted out how to stop this happening again going forward. You will see what have been the problems in the solutions I've found - rest well each day, by taking the evening off or the morning if I've got work stuff on in the evening; replenish my (introvert) energies, by having Monday as a thinking-writing-listening, people-free day; have realistic expectations of what I can do when in the Chilean year; remember that God is ultimately responsible for his people and will see them through.

It's the last of these that this post's really about. I've gone back to basics (as we must always!) with the New City Catechism. (If you have kids or find the antique language of the commentary and prayers hard to follow, just click on the settings cog and change to 'Child Mode'.) My memory being what it is, I'm doing no more than having a read and a ponder, then writing my own prayer, which I thought I might share with you.

What is our only hope in life and death? 
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ. (Romans 14:7-8)


Dear Lord Jesus, I belong to you. I am yours; I am not my own. Thank you for purchasing me, for your willingness to pay with your blood. Thank you that you did this for my brothers and sisters too, that this is what binds us together, what motivates and makes possible our love for each other, and what has made us secure unto heaven. Thank you that in the responsibility I feel as a leader and for these people, I don't need to feel - nor should I feel - even a gram, a milligram of responsibility for their perseverance in the faith. It would be good to encourage and strengthen them and perhaps I am even called to do it, but it is you, O Lord, who will shepherd them safely through, however excellent or poor my efforts be.