They say a pastor shouldn’t make any major decisions on Monday.  Rick Warren, the pastor at Saddleback Community Church, says he feels like resigning every Monday morning.  I’ve heard of a lot of pastors feeling that way.  Maybe that’s why so many pastors take Mondays off.

Personally, I’ve never felt that way, and so, for most of my 27 years of being a pastor, I went to work on Mondays – even now, I study Monday mornings.  However, this Monday morning was different.  I can’t really put my finger on why, but I had this growing feeling of depression. My mood reflected the weather outside – cloudy with 60% chance of rain, with the percentage increasing throughout the day.

I didn’t just feel bad all of a sudden.  It started with little things that came into my mind and kind of built up from there.  I began thinking of things I needed to do, and then some things that I should have already done.  Then I started thinking of the service on Sunday and what things could have gone better.  I even started second guessing some things I had said.  Then I read something that triggered thoughts about a family issue and I started to feel weighted down some more.  Before I knew it, I was feeling really bad.  I had my own personal rain cloud over me and I was getting soaked … much like Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh fame .

This all took place in a matter of about 45 minutes.  Now, this doesn’t happen to me very often.  I am more of an upbeat person.  I mostly see the good in life and people, and so I normally wake up feeling good about what the day is going to bring.  But by 7 am this morning, I felt like my day had already been ruined, and maybe we should just take Mondays off the calendar!

I don’t know if you ever feel that way, but I’m sure glad it doesn’t happen to me often. Anyway, for some reason I pulled out my iPhone and opened a weather app to the present day weather forecast. The app showed the temperature in front of a picture of clouds.  And that’s how I was feeling:  all cloudy.  Then I went to the map and saw that it wasn’t overcast everywhere; in fact, in Toronto, only 3 hours away, it was sunny.  Next I checked the 10-day forecast and noticed there is sun in the forecast in the days ahead. And that got me thinking of something that’s coming up that I’m looking forward to.  That helped my mood a little.

Then I started to pray, and told God all the things that were weighing me down. Some things I couldn’t do anything about; I just asked Him to deal with those.  For the things that I needed to do something about, I asked for His help and made a list.  For the things that were coming up, I thanked Him.  By the time I was done, the weather outside hadn’t changed at all, but the weather in me had.  I’m glad I can go to God any time, especially when I’m down.  I guess I won’t quit today, after all.

Until next time!

Pastor Paul

When the weather in you is cloudy, how has God brought some sun?  Leave your comment below.