Usually I am a jump right in guy. However this sabbatical has me a little concerned. So I am spending the first two weeks in a beautiful place with plenty of rest, BUT I will run a class twice a day. Is that cheating? Probably. It does help me afford Jamaica at a 5 star resort. As in free. I felt like when I said I was on sabbatical to people that I had to explain what I was doing in Jamaica and reduce the weight of having to teach 20 classes. Man when I say it like that, it sounds like work! It also sounds like guilt.
There is this other thing that has nagged at me. The fact that I am going to 2 topical paradises. After all, I am a pastor and those things cost money. I could explain how I have reduced the price radically, but that is not the issue. The issue is I think that others will not be happy with me. Most Americans have not done what I am doing. Europeans, yes, Americans, not so much. American pastor of a small church? How in the world...? Notice that I didn’t explain how I reduced the cost? Well, I did a little above. Now if I can just overcome feeling bad for being blessed. Right? God is good. Things are good right now for us. As in Jamaica and Hawaii with Palm Desert thrown in between. We are blessed. I think this should glorify God. Yet there is another tree, dendrite, concrete structure in my brain that needs to change. I can confess it, proclaim it, write it, but until I go deep and replace the thinking that allows the guilt to come for being blessed, it will remain. It is a foreign substance. Toxic. It needs to go too. Jamaica here I come!