Come, Sacrificing Often

By Jamie Wiechman and Justin Rossow

Jamie:

My January and February were a bit intense this year. That’s on top of last year’s intensity. Now that I’m counting, I guess I’d say it’s been one version of craziness or another for at least 5 years. At least.

So even though I wouldn’t have called the start of this year bad, per se, there was a level of commotion that left me keyed up and quite overstimulated. To the point where I found myself stuck: I couldn’t figure out how to come down.

I was tired. Had I been a toddler, you might have called me “overtired.” You know: the kind where you need a nap (badly) but you are going to pitch a fit and fight it with everything you’ve got? I was that kind of tired. Exhaustion met hyper-stimulation, and the rest I desperately needed continued to elude me.

After a Google search intended to solve my problems (Yes; I was researching rest. Isn’t that almost as good as actually resting?), I discovered that, according to one search result, if I lived in France my prolonged overstimulation, chronic stress, and subsequent health challenges might be treated with spa days and extended vacations. (Note to self: Consider a move to France.) Beyond that, I was intrigued by the idea of a month-long solo vacation on a quiet beach with a stack of novels.

Since these two ideas seemed a bit far-fetched, I began pondering what sort of lifestyle changes I would need to implement if I wanted to keep myself from getting hyped up.

Ever again.

In my whole life.

(Obviously, much less far-fetched.)

 Desperation had clearly set in.

I was well beyond deep breathing, going for a walk, going to bed early, or taking a day or two off. I needed something bigger; a solution that could deliver deeper relief. I was entering panic mode.

OK, maybe it was just a mild panic. I don’t know if it was as dramatic as I make it out to be, or if it just felt like it was. Maybe it didn’t matter if it was all in my head or not. I was keenly aware of my need for help.

I was thinking, maybe never getting stimulated ever again in my whole life might be setting the bar a little high… But I wasn’t sure, so I reached out to a friend who has helped me in the past when I wanted to scale down a drastically large next step.

Justin:

It was maybe a week or two after Jamie and I recorded a podcast with our friend Katie Helmreich about lowering the bar for your next step that Jamie reached out to me again. (You can check out that podcast episode here.)

Jamie and I have been friends for years, and she just recently went through the Disciple Like You Mean It online training (so she can coach other people through it, as well. I am so glad to be partnering with Breathe Life Ministries!)

In her very last submission for that course, Jamie wrote: “I’m mulling over a big next step right now that may benefit from being broken down into small next steps. I’m going to work on that by tomorrow.”

Because she is a dear friend, but also because I care about the people in that course, I responded: “If you are going to try and break down a big next step into smaller steps (great idea!), maybe get some help. That’s one of the conversations I have grown in, and you can call me and we can spend 30 minutes lowering the bar, if that’s helpful. Send me a text and we can find a time.”

Little did I know that Jesus had some pretty cool things in store for me, too…

Jamie:

I was so glad Justin reached out! I immediately texted him and we set up a time to talk. On the phone, a torrent of ideas, concerns, fears, and overwhelm poured out of my mouth. (God bless Justin for hanging in there.) I guess I had been needing a place to dump all those words.

After listening with patience void of judgment (God bless him for that, too), Justin asked me what Jesus had been speaking into my life lately.

He suggested a quiet moment to pray and consider. What a kind offering in my storm: an invitation to pause and notice. There was so much going on in my head, and I definitely needed a minute to sort out what in there might possibly be God at work.

Justin:

I mean, I didn’t know how to respond! Jamie was saying she was having trouble coming down from being overstimulated, so she was considering trying to avoid everything interesting, engaging, or stimulating as a possible lifestyle choice. What do you say to that??

So I just went back to the training we do in the course. Before you try to identify your actual next step (“Spirit, what response are you forming in me?”), you start with first Standard Following Prayer: “Jesus, where are you speaking into my life?”

When I teach the course, I tell people to actually give the person they are working with time to pray. But that feels soooo awkward sometimes… I had to make myself do it, and even then, it was a super soft sell: “So, the next step process says we should actually take time to pray that prayer … I don’t know if you really want to do that or not … but I guess we could, if you want, just to see how the process works …”

I’m thankful I took my own training to heart and made an offer I thought might be uncomfortable, because Jamie leaned in and actually took a couple of minutes to pray. The silence on the other end of the line somehow sounded like prayer silence—not just dead space or someone waiting to talk. And when she was done, she had more to say.

Jamie:

When I asked Jesus where he has been speaking into my life, I remembered my word for 2024, “Come,” as well as the Bible story found in 2 Samuel 6 that goes along with it.

The story is about David leading a procession that was ushering the Ark of the Covenant, the mark of the presence of the Lord, back into the city of Jerusalem. For me, verse 13 is the key: “When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf.”

What was the Lord speaking into my life? Come; pausing often for sacrifice.

Great invitation, but what does that look like practically? Justin and I started batting around some ideas.

Justin:

If Jamie had answered the Compass question right then (Where am I right now?), she would have said something like, “Overstimulated and overwhelmed, and afraid of being overstimulated and overwhelmed again.” To (1) notice that, (2) with Jesus, and (3) without self-judgment is huge! She was already moving forward in a big way, even if she didn’t see it yet.

As we continued walking through the next step process, Jamie quickly became aware of something Jesus had been putting on her heart lately: “Come; pausing often for sacrifice.”

But that takeaway from the story in 2 Samuel 6 didn’t answer her fear or need directly; there was no magic bullet fix to her situation. But the Spirit was shaping some kind of response in her. The question became, what might that response look like in real life?

That’s where the SMART acronym can be helpful. This next step needed to be Jamie’s idea, not mine, but I could still help her make it as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resonant, and Time-Bound as possible. I just had to keep asking questions and let her clarify what exactly she was going to do in this next step experiment.

Jamie:

First, the invitation to come didn’t seem to suggest quitting everything in my life. That idea came off the table pretty quickly. (Sigh.)

Pause often. That seemed like a helpful concept in terms of keeping the stimulation (and subsequent over-stimulation) to a manageable amount. But what does it mean to pause often?

In 2 Samuel, David paused every six steps. That is frequent. What might it look like to pause quite frequently; the equivalent of every six steps for me? Often enough that it would feel slightly disruptive… maybe even sacrificial? Hmmm…. I think I can dial this in a little further….

Justin:

This is about where our initial conversation ended. Jamie was well on her way to finding a concrete small next step to experiment with. She said she wanted to work on the details a little, but I could tell something was percolating.

Jamie:

As I kept processing what next step experiment I was going to run, with all the how’s, and when’s, and what time of day’s specified enough to make it possible to actually try, I settled on pausing (like David) six times a day: morning, mid-morning, lunch time, mid-afternoon, dinner time, before bed. The idea was of a short interruption of my routine to recalibrate: maybe 5 minutes of prayerful reflection, tops.

Next concept: sacrifice. It doesn’t take very long in my day before I am carrying burdens and pressures… often before my feet hit the floor in the morning.

What if my sacrifice could be to lay these down? I could take a moment to notice any pressures or burdens I had picked up (good or bad), and imagine myself kneeling down, laying these on an altar as if they were David’s bull or a fattened calf, and letting the fire to consume them.

Now we’re getting somewhere! A couple things seemed missing to me, though.

Because I easily pick up burden, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t building in more pressure with my sacrifice. (I could just imagine stressing about whether my sacrifice was “good enough” to count, even in this small experiment.)

So I wanted to receive the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice as more significant than my own. In an attempt to connect with this reality, after kneeling at the altar, I planned to imagine Jesus serving me his supper: the gift of his body and blood to feed me; Jesus’ presence as more nourishing than anything I could accomplish or produce in my day.

Then I wanted to apply his sacrifice to my current circumstance: what specifically did his sacrifice cover? In what specific way was his grace sufficient for me in that specific moment?

Lastly, I noticed that David left his sacrifice rejoicing and praising. I wanted to do the same. The final piece of my plan was to consider what rejoicing this pause provided for me. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, in what specific way could I praise or celebrate?

I made note cards for myself (see the bottom of this blog to print your own) with these ideas as headings, and blanks for me to fill in. (Part of what I learned in Disciple Like You Mean It is the power of adding tools or helps to your physical environment to enable you to do what you are wanting to do.)

Eager to see how it would go, I decided to start the experiment right away and run it for the next two days. Then I shared my plan with my friend Justin.

Justin:

I was so excited to see the actual note card Jamie developed! I didn’t understand exactly what all her notes meant, or why she chose those particular things to notice, but that didn’t matter. She had a tailor-made small next step experiment as one small way to begin addressing something that had felt completely overwhelming just a day or two ago.

We got back on the phone and I told her how impressed I was with how small, specific, and doable her next step was, and how much I loved the way it was grounded in a particular Bible story. Then my next step training kicked by in, and I noticed that, according the process we had just both been through together, it would be better for her is she had someone who would run this small experiment with her. (We call that the Carabiner Question: Who’s on your rope? i.e. Who else is going to take this small next step with you and debrief how it went?)

I asked her who she might invite to run this small experiment with her. And then I said, if she asked, I would. I was getting ready to preach again soon, and as much as I love preaching, it tends to be a ramp-up-the-adrenaline-and-then-crash-and-burn kind of event for me. (One of the things I miss most about parish ministry is regular preaching; one of the things I miss least is the way my kids learned to run and hide on Sunday afternoons …)

So I figured an experiment in managing overstimulation might be timely. I didn’t exactly volunteer, and I suggested a few other alternatives, but taking a next step all on your own is the least attractive option, so I told her I was at least available for the asking.

Jamie:

Who might I ask to join me in my experiment? That may have been the toughest question of the whole process. My next step felt so “out there” and odd in my mind that I couldn’t fathom asking someone to do it with me. In fact, it was only out of sheer desperation that I even let someone know what I was struggling with in the first place.

When Justin mentioned that he would be willing to give this a try along with me, I almost cried. The gift of having someone to talk with through my overwhelm had already been significant. The additional offer to walk the next steps with me was beyond my imagining, giving me support for my next step that made it even seem kind of fun.

Justin:

The first week Jamie ran the experiment, I wasn’t preaching. So I decided I would look for a few times to use the reflection card as she had prepared it, and then the next weekend, when I was preaching, I would plan on using it again.

That Saturday morning, I was on my way to drop off some recycling when I found myself mulling over some hurt feelings and regret I still carried from a difficult work situation maybe six or seven years ago. I don’t know why I was processing that again on a random morning drive, but I was. I think it was still with me because I had not yet figured out what I was supposed to learn or gain from that painful experience; it somehow felt like I should know something more or be better for having gone through that challenge; or I should have been able to reconcile better, or at least be understood better.

But none of that ever quite came about. I guess I had been reading something recently about how tension is necessary for movement or growth, but I hadn’t seen much movement or growth out of that experience. And I guess it still hurt.

I didn’t have plan for when or even why I would run Jamie’s experiment that weekend, but suddenly, driving in my van, it seemed obvious that this would be a perfect chance to put that 2 Samuel 6 verse into action. (And by “action,” I mean pausing to notice and invite Jesus into what was going on in my heart and mind. Sometimes our most important “next steps” are to stop and not do anything…)

Now I just had to remember what was on that card… Even without a copy in hand, I could imagine that moment in the story: David stops to sacrifice; and then moves forward, rejoicing. So I took an internal pause (note: you can pray, but don’t close your eyes or fold your hands while driving…) and wondered what Jesus was inviting me to lay down, what his sacrifice was covering for me, and what I had to rejoice about.

When I got back from the recycling run, I grabbed one of Jamie’s cards to record those moments of prayerful reflection.

+ Pause, and lay down: My need to find learning or meaning or to validate myself in that difficult situation.

+ Jesus’ sacrifice covers: My failures, my misunderstanding, my complicity in a broken system.

+ Go out rejoicing that: Reconciliation belongs to Jesus (not me).

Without the card in front of me, I forgot to picture Jesus feeding me his meal. At that point, I didn’t yet understand how Jamie was connecting the image of the meal to the story of David, so I didn’t remember it when I thought of bringing the Ark and the Presence of the LORD to Jerusalem. But the experiment was really helpful for me, even without the card on hand! It reminded me that I had the presence of Jesus with me, that his sacrifice mattered for my Saturday morning, and that I had reason to celebrate!

Jamie:

During my first run, I experienced a gentle and gracious way to begin winding down from the adrenaline I had been riding. I had a practical way to draw near to Jesus in the midst of my craziness. I felt connected to his loving-kindness and grace at numerous points throughout my day. This security countered the force that was relentlessly driving me to restlessness. Really helpful!

Sure, it didn’t solve everything for me. I was still tired, and my mind continued to be overly active. However, I found this practice to be helpful in a very tangible way. It connected me to Jesus, to kindness, and to grace. It got my feet moving in the direction I was wanting to go.

Justin:

When we debriefed after that first weekend, we noticed that “receiving from Jesus” was broader than just the imagery of a meal. The meal is a good default or go-to, but we both expanded into the footwashing image at times.

At one point, when I was having trouble falling asleep, I was even reminded of the psalm that says, “The LORD grants rest to those he loves.” So instead of the meal, I was thinking of Jesus offering me the kind of peace and confidence in God that allowed him to nap through a storm. Come, Holy Spirit, and shape that confidence and peace (and sleep) of Jesus in me!  So we tweaked the card a little and decided to run the experiment again.

Jamie:

I was quite encouraged by my first run with the experiment, so I decided I could test it out at an upcoming event. I was scheduled to attend and to present, so I figured, over those two days I would probably be prone to spin up into the kind of over-stimulated state I wanted to avoid. I made my plan a little looser, not quite sure when the breaks would be scheduled, but intending to take a moment between sessions to pause with Jesus, as well as in the mornings and evenings.

When I paused midway through the event to consider what I might be carrying, I noticed a general sense of having missed something or having made some mistake that I couldn’t yet identify. (Apparently, I spend a lot of time self-assessing when I present, and had been about to get into that process.) It was a sweet relief to offer this fear of failure to Jesus instead of finding myself in a spin about all the ways I may have messed up.

I took note that Jesus’ sacrifice covers everything I should have done, but didn’t.

I found myself connecting to this Scriptural truth at a level beyond just my intellect, which was really helpful. The “go out rejoicing” step flowed naturally out of my relief: his grace is sufficient and my sin is washed clean. These words I’ve heard many times had a significant impact on me that morning. I walked away a little lighter, with no pit to dig myself out of that day.

The morning after the event, I felt spent. When I went to fill out my card, I felt that I had little capacity to think about it. I changed a couple of the words on the card so it would fit better my experience that day.

+ Lay down: My small offering.

+ His sacrifice covers mercy: Receives it as a treasure.

+ Go out rejoicing that: It’s okay to sometimes have a small gift.

When I went to picture Jesus feeding me his supper, what came to mind instead was a teeny, tiny fire on the tiny altar of my small sacrifice. That gracious acceptance of my small gift made me chuckle: Jesus joyfully receives even the smallest gifts we bring. That’s a relief!

Justin:

My second time through the experiment was supposed to be centered around my preaching the next weekend. But my Sunday morning plan fell apart quickly. I simply didn’t have (or didn’t take) time before the first service or between services to use one of the notecards for guided reflection or prayer.

In that sense, the second experiment was a “failure” because it didn’t do what I thought it was going to do. But I have learned to see the value is super low bar, small next step “failures.” They keep you moving forward. And I learned at least one thing that doesn’t work for me on Sunday mornings! That, too, is helpful!

Mostly, I now have a new tool in my bag that I can pull out when the right situation arises. I also have another way of recording what Jesus is up to in my life so I can look back and celebrate his faithfulness.

Even just a few (busy) weeks away from that initial experience, I had kind of forgotten some of what I had learned. Looking back at my note cards (to write this article) brought some of those really important growth moments to mind, and I could rejoice again in what Jesus is (and has been) up to in my life. I even used the Come, Sacrificing Often card to pray for a friend of mine who was facing a challenging time, and it helped focus (and record/share) my prayers for him. I’m so glad Jamie invited me to take this next step with her!

Jamie:

So, am I “all better” now? No more fear of getting wound up and overstimulated? I wish! But I do have what I need to start imagining another small next step. One of the most valuable things I have learned recently is how gracious and patient and kind Jesus is to me. I can keep taking small next steps and, even then they don’t work out as planned, Jesus is with me along the way.

I guess I’ll let go of the dream of fixing my overstimulation problem with one fell swoop. (Unless, of course, anyone knows of rental property available in France…) And I’ll keep using the ideas behind the Come, Sacrificing Often cards to help me lean on Jesus more and more.

I even keep a copy of the actual card in my purse, just in case.

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