“It’s not the gator that you see that you have to worry about, it’s the ones you don’t that you need to be worried about.”
I don’t have any idea where that thought came from. My only guess is that it sublimely made its way into my mind during one of the many “Swamp People” marathons that I’ve watched on the History Channel. It just sounds like something that Troy would say while surveying the muddy waters of the Atchafalaya River Basin swamp, the sun setting behind him and some great music playing in the background as the scene slowly fades to black…what a great show! However, or whenever, the thought originally came into my subconscious (I say this, because there is no way I could/would come up with anything like this on my own) it made itself known this past week as I went for stroll around the subdivision where my parents have a beach house. You see the area around the subdivision (like most of coastal Carolina) is riddled with swamps and marshes. It is in theses swamps and marshes that the local American Alligator makes its home. So as I meandered around the subdivision I paid careful attention to the sides of the road and the marshes, with that singular thought repeating itself in my head, reminding me to be ever vigilant.
*(a note of disclaimer, this is the part of the blog where thoughts get deep—and another note, I never saw an alligator…sorry.)
I must be completely honest; I didn’t just take off for a nice quite walk as part of my everyday physical routine, or even to have a deeper more spiritual encounter. No, this was one of those walks you take as a parent—when everything is getting crazy and you may on the verge of losing your cool (yes, this happens to pastors too—hello, normal dude here!). It was a cooling off walk, a step back and take a deep breath kind of walk, maybe you’re a better person than me and you’ve never had to have one of these, or maybe you’ve felt the consequences of not taking the walk and wish you had—whatever your position, this is where I was and what I was doing. As I walked (and thought about alligators) I started to really think about things. I was mad and it wasn’t really at anything that had just transpired, I was just angry and I began to really unpack my anger and try to find a genesis for it. As I rolled through the many issues that I have going on (I’m sure if you’re in some sort of management possession you can really relate to that) I began to see my problems as alligators, and really started to think about the alligator/problem that I wasn’t able to see. This was going to be the one that gets me, or judging by the way I was feeling—the one that had already got me.
This is when it occurred to me, the one place that I wasn’t looking as I laid out my laundry list of problems and issues was in the mirror. Maybe my biggest problem wasn’t everyone else, maybe it was me. I began to think about different situations, what remained the same? Me. I was the one common denominator. Now at this time I was reminded of another saying, “everyone else is crazy, and I’m the one on medication!” But I couldn’t shake the thought, what if my biggest problem was me—well not really me, but my misguided focus. It’s very easy in life, especially in the ministry, to spend the majority of your time pouring into other people and trying to fix everyone else’s problems to the point that you allow no time for healing or refreshing for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I have my quite time and spend my time in prayer and reflection, and I love what I do, counting it a privilege to serve as I do—but something was missing.
I had allowed my relationship with God to erode and grow cold. My “quite” time had become just a process, a mechanical thing that I did…mere religion. There was no true seeking Him out and letting Him work in me. My focus had been moved from what should have been the most important part of my life, my personal relationship with God. It was not from God’s side, it was me. I had become apathetic or maybe just complacent in my approach to a personal time with God. This gross oversight on my part had not only affected me, but had crept into other parts of my life, my relationship with my wife, my kids, and was overflowing into how I saw everything. None of this means that my other alligator/problems weren’t real and didn’t need to be addressed, but what had happened was that the one that I didn’t see, the erosion of my personal fellowship with my Creator, was the one that snuck up and took a big bite out of me.
Everything that I am, partner, parent, pastor is shaped by what happens to me as a person. In life we have the tendency to get our priorities out of order. I (we) must be very aware of my (our) priorities and to keep them in their proper order. You may say to me, “but shouldn’t the needs of my wife and my kids come before my own?” and I would agree—but not before your personal relationship with God. Your personal relationship with God will trickle down into every other aspect of your life and shape the way you handle everything from your partner, to your kids, to your profession. If you are not careful you will allow other things to take away from your personal time with God, and as your personal relationship with God grows cold, you will find that it won’t take long until the other priorities begin to be affected. Then the next thing you know, you’re walking around a subdivision looking out for alligators trying to figure out how you got there, and where everything went wrong. Never realizing that it was the alligator you didn’t see that ended up getting you.
