A preacher had to go to the doctor. He had chest pains and was naturally concerned.
When the doctor finished his work, he informed the pastor of the culprit: stress. The pastor had been working weeks on end with no break. There were people trying to hurt the church; he was hearing grumbling, and everything put together made him feel as if he was having a heart attack.
The doctor, a very wise man, sat before the pastor and gave him a sermon of his own. He said:
"Preacher, I spent years in medical school and incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. I opened this practice, my lifelong dream. I have many employees counting on me to run it well enough for them to receive paychecks and benefits so that they can support their own families.
"And then, on top of all that, I constantly have people come in here living unhealthy lifestyles, yet when I tell them what steps to take to fix the problem, they ignore me. Then, to make matters worse, when their condition worsens, they threaten to sue me and ruin my life's dream, even though they have done the exact opposite of everything I told them to do.
"Preacher, if I focus on all that, I will be in the same condition you are; right on the verge of a stress-induced heart attack. But when I look out a different window, I see the lives I have saved, and the children who will get to grow up and have kids of their own, and the people that have listened to my words, done what I said, and gotten better. When I look out that window, preacher, my whole attitude changes. Preacher, maybe you need to look out a different window, too."
And he did. He began to focus on those who loved him, and on his sweet family, and on the ones who had come to know Christ under his ministry. He is well up in years now and still doing quite nicely. A change of perspective made the difference.
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah got so depressed, he actually asked God to take his life. He was focused on a problem; a wicked woman named Jezebel was trying to destroy him. But by the end of the chapter, he was looking out a different window. By the end of the chapter, he was focusing on training a successor, and anointing a new king, and on the 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal.
The problems had not gone away. The circumstances were the exact same. The only thing that changed was his focus, the window he chose to look out of.
I do not often give out homework assignments in a column, but today I will do so. If you are discouraged, try this. Get a piece of paper and write down all of the things and people that you have and would not want to do without. Everyone's list will be different. For me, it is things like sight, hearing, walking, wife, kids, mom, friends, taste, home, salvation, my Bible, my church; my list could go on for a very, very long time. Write down absolutely every one and every thing great or small, don't leave anything out.
Do you know what you have just created? Another window; a very large and pleasant one. It is a window that you can look out any time you like and see all of the things that should make you smile. That window will come in very handy on days when your heart is breaking because it will remind you that it still has many reasons to heal and even to smile again.
You may want to actually even frame that window; I suspect it will become very precious to you.
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., and the author of several books that are available at wordofhismouth.com. Contact him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.