Go to the source

God had chosen a moment to show me he was holding me and healing me inwardly, says Chris Cartwright, Elim's national leader.

Over the summer of 2022, I returned to Wayne Cordeiro’s book, ‘Leading on Empty’. The founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, Wayne tells the story of a period in his life when, as a seemingly successful pastor and leader, he suddenly and unexpectedly hit burnout.

I confess that initially, I wondered what problems a pastor in Hawaii might have! I found, though, that Wayne shares his experience with a rare openness and vulnerability and that his story was rooted in things common to us all. He also shares the slow but life-changing journey not just back to where he was but forward to greater wholeness and fruitfulness as a man, a friend, a husband, a father, a grandfather and, lastly, as a pastor and leader.

I bought a copy soon after the book came out in 2009. After a really intense period of activity and expansion in the church in which I was serving, I had been about to take a six-week break, kindly approved by the eldership, which would include a big trip we had been planning and saving for to the West Coast of America and Hawaii.

As the time came, I found myself struggling with a number of health issues and extreme fatigue. Instead of the time of rest and renewal, I’d been longing for, I was struggling physically and emotionally in ways I had never before experienced.

Over those weeks, in my anxiety and fear and in weakness and emptiness, I found the Lord in both simple and surprising places. In heartfelt prayer, his Word and promises began to renew me inwardly. In worship, mostly listening to songs of worship, I sensed the presence of God, upholding and drawing me to himself.

And I experienced the extraordinary intervention of God. As those weeks went by I was increasingly fearful the big trip that we were planning wouldn’t happen.

It felt like I couldn’t even make it to the local shops, let alone halfway across the world. One Saturday, I dragged myself out of bed to take a memorial service for the mother of a dear friend. After the service, he asked me how I was and introduced me to a medical consultant colleague of his. Within days I was attending the University Hospital for a barrage of tests. At the end of the week, I met with the consultant who announced I was stressed, chronically fatigued and unfit, but OK to travel. In fact, he said, the planned trip should be the beginning of a recovery plan.

We did go on the trip. Fast forward with me to the moment I arrive on Big Island, Hawaii, with my wife and our three children. We pick up a hire car to go to our accommodation. Driving out of the small airport I reach to switch on the car radio. Immediately the car is filled with a familiar sound. “And God is so good,” the lead singer declares. “And God is so good,” the congregation proclaims.

And, much to my children’s confusion, I begin to weep as I sensed the presence of God filling the car.

The song was from an album recorded live at Kensington Temple way back in 1991. It had been my last weekend as the worship pastor of the church, and we were recording a live album in a series called ‘Worshipping Churches’. It was an album that I’d been involved in producing even though I was a complete musical amateur. And here it was playing on the radio on a Hawaiian island at the very moment when I switched on the radio.

What I felt in that car was the confirmation of what God had been doing in my body, heart and spirit in the weeks before. I felt his love, I felt his care, and I felt his restoring promise. I thought of Psalm 139, still one of my favourites.

David talks so passionately about being ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ and of God’s amazing and abiding love.

Very personally he asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit?” He goes on, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.”

God had chosen a moment to show me and reassure me that, as my Father, he was holding me and healing me inwardly and that, at that moment, he’d come to make me whole. The months and the years ahead would require changes in so many areas of my life. It would require changing some lifestyle habits, developing some new disciplines and fresh rhythms. At times, I too had been leading on empty, and the Lord was calling me back to himself as my constant source.

I remember hearing John Wimber years ago suggesting that we are often so drawn to people who seem full of the presence of God we come to them to hear a word into our situation. He described how we expect that they have been before God and received something from him. He said it’s as though we bring our containers, our buckets, in order to get filled up.

He went on to remind us that, rather than going with our buckets to the one who has gone to the Lord, we can go directly to the source – to God the Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord. We can respond to Jesus’ invitation: “Is anyone thirsty (or empty)? Come to me and drink.” And the Holy Spirit will not only draw us to him but walk with us and work in us to fill and refill us for all the days to come.
 

Watch Chris Cartwright share his message to Elim for 2023

This article first appeared in the December 2022 edition of Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

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