Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28). The Apostle Paul, like every pastor, knew what it was to carry the burden of concern for others. As a pastor for over thirty years, I understand just how heavy that burden can be, and the emotional toll it can take when it’s carried over an extended period of time. I’ve become convinced that there are certain things you must learn to avoid if you’re going to last in ministry. Allow me to illustrate. 

My last church was a recovery church. My heart’s burden was to see every person who passed through those doors experience deliverance from the devastating effects of drug addiction and alcoholism.  Such a ministry can be very emotionally frustrating, especially when there are families with young children involved, and the addict continues to relapse. One such case involved a woman who had recently lost her husband and daughter to a tragic accident and had just checked herself out of recovery in the middle of her program. 

The future of her young sons hung in the balance as her church support team sat around a dining table to counsel her. It became pretty clear, after listening to how she was going to “work out” her own sobriety program, that every person sitting around that table was more committed to her success than she was. 

I finally said, “it’s clear to me this isn’t going to work. We can’t care more about your sobriety than you do. When that changes, let us know. For now, we need to step aside and let you do what you’ve already determined you’re going to do.”

In 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz developed a computer program to predict weather patterns.  One day he was in a hurry and set a computer calculation that was supposed to be .506127 to .506.  He figured a thousandth of a percent would be irrelevant.  Later in the day, he restarted the program and found a radically different prediction in weather patterns.  He produced a paper stating that a very small change in initial conditions could have a radical change in results. A fellow scientist said that if Lorenz was correct, a single flap of a seagull’s wind could change the course of the weather forever. 

In 1972, Lorenz presented a paper called, “Does the Flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?”  The idea that a little change somewhere in the world could produce huge changes somewhere else became known as the "Butterfly Effect."

[Edward Lorenz's findings were first published in 1963, in a paper entitled “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow."  Lorenz shared the 1983 Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and was awarded the 1991 Kyoto Prize.]

The waitress at the cafe serves you the meal she did not purchase or prepare. The cafe owner purchases the food and the cook labors over every detail of the preparation. Yet, they remain hidden, unknown and unseen. The waitress takes orders and places the food on the table and is the one who hears the words, "Thank you!"