What helps when you’re not sure your work actually matters?

This is the question I posed to a group of colleagues a couple weeks ago when my brain, heart and spirit were sluggish with weeks of constant work, a heavy administrative load, and the unmourned (by me) death of a beloved retired pastor in my congregation. I would walk into my office and feel whatever small amount of energy I’d woken with desert me, as if my desk chair were made of will-wicking material.

What’s wrong with me, I wondered. Objectively everything is going well at work: people are happy, participation is growing, the daycare we run has finally (all the things crossed) turned a corner toward health. I’m surrounded with love and support, at home and at work.

Still the sermons have been slower to come every week, often coming together as the words are leaving my mouth on Sunday morning. I’m neither excited to preach nor excited by the words that eventually gather together. Am I out of things to say? And even if I preach the best sermon I ever have, can it stay in the hearts of its hearers against the onslaught of bad news that hurls itself through our screens daily? Does any of it matter in the big picture or is the world headed to hell no matter how loudly I protest against the gale force?

I know I am not alone in this feeling of insignificance, this near despair of a better future for either the church or our country. It is in the water and we are all drowning. In an effort to at least stay afloat, I share the best of what my colleagues advised.

Rest, they said. REALLY REST. Not just the numbing we do through doomscrolling, tv bingeing, or wrapping up in a heated blanket and staring into the void. Find the things that allow you to disconnect from work and the worry of your heart. Touch grass, as the younger wiser ones say. Sit in a hammock and marvel at the kaleidoscope fall leaves against the blue sky. Take your new car and an air mattress into the woods for a night and make it fun, even if it is too cold for such adventures. (It really was, but we snuggled our way to warmth).

And once you’ve rested enough to have some capacity, schedule in joy. Put more of what you love on the calendar and keep those appointments. Make space for regular worship and devotional time that is FOR you, not BY you. Give away the parts of your job you can, like asking a retired colleague to preach or lay people to make visits.

And finally, as a particularly wise colleague said, pay attention to your dissatisfaction with the way things are. You are not wrong to want a better way, a straighter path, a surer sense that your contribution is truly contributing. Maybe that itch in your soul is the bite of the Holy Spirit, agitating you into a different way. Maybe the lack of inspiration is a sign that God is calling you out of old perspectives, to stand in a new place and see what this old world looks like from there.

I’m trying to follow the wisdom shared with me, and it’s helping. I took some extra days off last week, and I meet with a new spiritual director this week. My retired colleague preached Sunday, and wouldn’t you know, the Spirit gave him the exact sermon I needed to hear. I’ve spent more time on supporting our community’s immigrants and making spreadsheets of this year’s stewardship pledges. Nicely collated data can sometimes bring you joy, and loving your neighbor always can.

All this is to say: you are not alone. Neither in your struggle to see how the battles you are waging daily make headway against the wars we are all in together, nor in your striving to find the inspiration to keep going. The best we can do is surround ourselves with the wisdom and encouragement of others. And when even that doesn’t work, to let ourselves lay fallow knowing that the fight will still be there when we are rested enough to try again.