A Glimpse of Lin

How can I feel so alone, Being surrounded by all these church folk. They tell me to leave everything in the hands of God, And I’ve tried but I keep getting ran over by my thoughts. It’s not that I feel worthless or that I’m not good enough, It’s not even the fact that life has been rough. But it’s a feeling that I can’t even comprehend, Like an emptiness that doesn’t want to come to an end. No, I’m not in a dark place, I still believe and have my faith, I still pray and read my Bible every day, But something in my life just went away. Is this what it feels like to be depressed? To be surrounded by loved ones yet still have an emptiness? Is this God showing me what those around me feel? If that’s so, I wish it wasn’t real. A common question we ask anybody we see is “how are you doing?” And the easiest answer to give is saying “I’m doing good” But how true is that answer that we give? Or would you rather not say that you’re struggling with a certa...

It's easy to say you're a Christian, and it's also easy to get caught up in going through the motions. I'm talking to those who actively serve in ministry, to the volunteers and to the leaders. Are you distracted in serving? I had to ask myself this same question after service on Sunday. Ministry is a blessing but at the very same time it can truly mess us up. I'm not saying to give up on ministry and drop it, but more so to check your heart right now. Are you putting so much time in serving your church that you're leaving God behind? Are you active in church but not active in studying the Bible? I gotta be honest and say that I've slacked off in my studies but God always has His way of grabbing my attention to get back on track. This might be it for you, this might be the Holy Spirit trying to shake you up and remind you that it's not about serving in ministry at church, it's not about being super active with people at church, but it's about you...

Everything should still run smoothly. I am not an expert when it comes to ministry but I can simply share what I’ve learned in the past 8 years of being a leader in different aspects of ministry, which I hope can be helpful to you both in ministry and outside of ministry. Some people will say that a good leader is someone who is respected by others and leads by example. While that is true, what can ultimately determine if a person is considered a good leader is in the time of their absence. I’ll keep this short with an example: let’s say that you are leading a team and you feel you’ve done a great job but one day you have to step out of that leadership position for whatever reason to take some time off and have to leave your team in charge of getting things done, what is going to determine if you’ve been a good leader is if your team is successful at running things as if you were never gone. In ministry, we focus so much on getting things done for God that we forget to put our f...