Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the job you are called to do? Ministry or not, it can sometimes be exhausting. We know the scripture about not getting tired…growing weary.

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

Galatians 6:9 NLT

Sometimes that just sounds like “gutting it out.” Staying with the job until it finally gets done, no matter how tired, exhausted, or overwhelmed you feel. I don’t think that is what God means.

Fred Smith, in his book Leading with Integrity shed some light on this. He tells the story of arriving at a three-day men’s retreat where he was to speak only to learn he was the only speaker. That was a much larger assignment than he had expected. After the retreat was over and Smith was flying home, he realized he wasn’t exhausted, even after a much more strenuous weekend than he had anticipated. He came to an interesting conclusion.

Fred Smith said that God’s presence permeated that retreat, and he realized that the Lord was the source of all he presented. His conclusion? God is the pump…I am only the pipe. Smith shared his revelation.

“The pipe never gets tired. When I attempt to be the pump as well as the pipe, that takes more than I have. When I try to substitute my power for God’s, I become powerless, dissatisfied, even frantic and defeated.”

Does that sound familiar? Most of us in leadership come to a place where we are depleted. We have given all we have to give, done all we know to do, and feel we come up short. Maybe we are trying to be the pump.

I often told our radio station staff that at our best, the radio ministry was just a big plastic pipe. You can buy pipe like that at a hardware store for very little money. There is not much value in the pipe…until you consider what that pipe delivers. Yet the pipe isn’t the pump. The pipe in our situation, is simply delivering to the recipients…listeners, viewers, or readers…God’s Truth and insight.

Peter and John were called before the religious leaders to answer to them. That would have been a time of great stress. But the accounts in Acts 4 indicate the religious leaders of the day were amazed at the confidence and boldness they showed. These two disciples had an explanation.

We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.

Acts 4:20 NLT

They were saying, “We are just pipes, not the pump. We are just sharing what the Lord has shown us and told us. Pipes…not the pump.”

We often get caught up in working for God…and not letting Him work through us. Working for God is in our own strength and wisdom. Letting God work through us gives us all the resources needed to accomplish what He would have us do.

If you think about it, God doesn’t need us to think up things for Him…and then ask Him to bless these human ideas. God has a plan. As Henry Blackaby has taught us, the greatest thing is to see where God is at work, and then join Him there. And when you are following His path and His plan, you are energized for all He wants to accomplish through you.

The key is to be sensitive to the Lord’s Holy Spirit. To work in the light of what the Spirit is showing us and to move in the way God is leading us. And the way to find that path…is to ask…and then listen to the Lord’s response.

God’s best…