Leadership Through Love - Chapter 5 - "Burn Candles at Both Ends? – NOT!" (Steve Martin)

Leadership Through Love - Chapter 5  

(Steve Martin)

Burn Candles at Both Ends? – NOT!

A.    Rest and Sabbath Days

B.     Mornings with the Lord

C.     We all are given 24 hours each day

D.  Trust in Him at all times

Working seven days a week, 50 or more weeks during the year, is not the Lord’s plan for anyone, and certainly not for someone in a leadership role, be it business, a church or ministry administrator. The one who does this will burn out faster than a Roman candle at a July Fourth celebration.

Serving with one church/ministry combination for fourteen years proved this in my life. During the continual growth of that ministry, we were staffed with a secretary and myself for a period of four years. After six years in this position, in 1994 we moved the ministry office and three families from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Charlotte, North Carolina. In addition to having a family of myself, with my wife Laurie and four children at home (either in grade school, middle or high school), my time was pressed at both ends.

Once having moved to North Carolina, within six months after landing in Charlotte we started building the local church, which took additional time and energy. With annual conferences continuing, starting at two per year and then four, plus Friday all-night prayer meetings from 10 pm until 6 am, followed by Saturday labor in building projects, added to the usual Sunday morning services, the toll indeed took its physical, emotional, and spiritual toll on myself and others.

When my father, who had moved here from Iowa in 1997, to help me with the ministry, after his retirement shortly before at age 63 years old, died two years later in July, 2000 from lymphoma cancer, my strength and desire to continue on ended soon thereafter. I was burnt out. And when the seemingly only hope and one request I had left, to travel at least once a year on an international ministry trip with the head of the ministry and senior pastor, was not to happen for me, my heart and hope completely left for staying there.

Dad's clock - in His time He took him to glory.

I resigned from the church and ministry staff as Administrator six months later, and our family left the church in July, 2001. It had just gotten to be too much.

If not for the encouraging prophetic words I had received along the way over those years, and the opportunity to return to Derek Prince Ministries after being gone for ten years, I am not sure where I would have ended up. Nor where my family would have gone. I am not sure it would have been with another ministry.

But only because of the Lord, Who was still giving me that continuing flicker of hope, which still lingered in my heart, and had not totally gone out. I yet longed to complete the call that had been on my life since my youth.

Early on in my Christian walk, certainly because of the great example my Mom, Lila Martin Parker, had set, I still continued to be diligent and faithful with my morning prayer and Bible reading time. Spending the early morning hours with the Lord was not only a good habit, but a necessity, if I was to do what I needed to do in my work of the ministry.

My Mom - June 2013

Typically I would rise at 5 am, shower, and spend the next half hour reading a chapter from the Bible, plus a Proverb, and then pray in tongues the rest of the time. As I saw it, letting the Holy Spirit, Who knows all, was much more intelligent than I was in praying. So I let Him pray through me, which would be more effective than if I prayed a list, or as thoughts came to my head, in English, my native tongue.

And so I prayed in tongues. This is a good practice that I continue to this day. Someday, once I have met my Lord in the heavenly realm, I will certainly begin to know how effective these prayers have been. I do know, as the Scriptures promise, that my inner spiritual being was being built up, and gave me daily strength and wisdom for the responsibilities I maintained.

We each are given 24 hours each day. What we choose to do with them will determine much in the direction we walk, the relationships we have, and the work that is completed. Our daily choices today will determine where we are at next month, next year, and ten years from now.

Back in 1985, as a member of Shiloh Fellowship in East Lansing, Michigan, I heard a message spoken by Erik Krueger, Founder and Senior Co-Pastor of the church (later renamed New Covenant Christian Church), that still speaks to me this day. Erik shared a word that just sank into my spirit, which I think about on occasion. He simply said that we each are on a path, and along the way there are roads we can take, which will either take us closer to the mark, or farther away from our destiny.

Even if we were to take a slight degree shift from our destined path at any point in time, if no course correction later occurred, years down the road we would find ourselves way off course. In some instances, it could be too far off to be corrected, without a major shift or repentance on our part.

We each need the help of others to make sure we continue to walk the walk, and stay on the right road. We need the encouragement of others to see the path ahead, when often it looks like we have come to a cliff, and the only way is down, or to a mountain, and we neither have the strength nor the desire to climb another mountain. (Even if we watch the Sound of Music movie many times!)

During the last year of my tenure with All Nations Church and Mahesh Chavda Ministries, when I was struggling to hear the Lord and confirm His direction I felt I needed to take, I called my good friend in Andalusia, Alabama, George Payne. George and I first knew each other in the early 1990’s, when he had called our Fort Lauderdale office to see if he could print our ministry envelopes. I was fairly blunt at the time, and told him on the phone that we didn’t do business with anyone outside of town. Well, the Lord changed that!

Many years later, after using boxes and boxes of envelopes that he had printed, serving together at conferences, and building a long lasting friendship to this day, George was one I could call on for advice. Knowing my situation as well as anyone, he had gained my trust to give me some good counsel. So I called him from my office in Charlotte during the summer of 2000.

He encouraged me to call a lady who had a prophetic gift, whom he had known for years, to ask her if the Lord would give her a word for me. And so I did.

When I called Helen, and introduced myself briefly so as to not give my situation away and let the Lord speak through her, she started praying in tongues, and then shared some very encouraging words. One being that the “changing of the guard was taking place”, and that the Lord’s direction was to be made clear to me. Truly words of light in my place of darkness and weariness.

The “guard” did change, and my faith was strengthened. Changes were needed, and I gave thanks to the Lord for His rehema word, and His written Word. As I shared above, the Lord had a turn in the road, and within a year I had taken it.

The first Scripture I ever memorized (being raised Catholic we didn't do too much of it), when I was 18, comes from Psalm 37:4,5, “Have your delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Trust also in Him, and He will do it.”

I would be the first to say that I have not always depended on the Lord as I should have, nor did I always trust Him for those daily needs that occurred regularly, but I can testify that I am still walking with Him this day. He has sustained, upheld, protected and watched over me and mine since I first put my trust in Him as a first grader in 1960. The teachers and preachers heard along the way, with the backing of the truth found in the Bible, have kept me on the destiny path the Lord desires.

I have learned not to burn the candles at both ends, to take each Saturday (or Sunday) as the holy day of the Lord to rest from my labors, and acknowledge Him in all my ways, along the way. This has been very instrumental in administrating His directives with staff and situations during the building processes.

Shalom!

Steve Martin
Founder/President
Love For His People, Inc.

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Note: To read the Intro, Chapter Listings and first four chapters please use the Search Box in the top right hand corner of this Blog, and enter "Leadership Through Love." Be blessed in your reading!

Leadership Through Love

Chapter Listings

1.      A Gift for His Purposes

- The Early Years

- On the job training

2.      Use the Tools You Have, But Not the Staff

- Treasure the people, while digging the foundations

- Do unto them as you would…

- Bless and curse not: honor those who serve with you

3.      Right Man (or Woman!) for the Job

- All are created equal – make the most of this!

- If the Shoe Fits, Have Them Wear It

4.      Train and Let Loose

- It IS Who You Know and Are Known By

- Hire To Complement Your Strengths

- if you are weak, then they are strong

- Outsource as needed

5.      Burn Candles At Both Ends? – NOT!

- Rest and Sabbath Days

- Mornings with the Lord

- Trust in Him at all times

- We all are given 24 hours each day

6.       The Visionaries Need You!

-          They dream it - you make it happen

-          It takes a team

-          Head Won’t Get Far without the Neck

(or heads will roll)

  

7.      Field Trips and More!

- Staff Retreats

- Party Time!

- Birthdays and BBQs

- After Hours

8.      It Doesn’t All Depend On You

- The Lord is the Rock – Not You

- Whose strength  - yours or His?

   - Key Staff to Lean On

    - Trustworthy managers and assistants

9.      Practically Speaking…and Walking

- Handle each piece of paper once

- File so you can find it!

- Early morning – before the others come

- Take a Break

10.  Meetings – Time-manger or Time-waster?

- Do you really need all those meetings?

- Group or One-On-One?

- Why Morning and Mid-Week?

 - Prov. 24:6 “By wise counsel…multitude of counselors

11.  Acknowledge Him in All Your Ways

- Heart of Thankfulness

- Heart of Worship

- Heart of Service

12.  Another Man’s Vineyard

-          Follow & help fulfill their vision

-          Faithful with another’s

-          Learn and growth until your time

-          The proper way of moving on