The Loom is a Tyrant.

For those who are in full-time ministry, there is are two great dangers, when it comes to time management - either under-work, or over-work.

Ministers are, in a large part, their own bosses. They are under the supervision of the Session and are accountable to the congregation, but when it comes to how much work is to be done in order to meet our teaching commitments we are pretty much alone with our consciences. This often leads to one of two temptations - either we are prone to doing just enough work to get by, following the principle that Thomas Chalmers laid down early in an anonymous pamphlet (which we later, and once converted, recanted of) that the
beauty of ministry was that all ministerial duties could be carried out in two days, leaving five days in which the clergyman could study whatever suited their taste! Or, we are prone to never being able to stop working. I think it is the latter that a great many ministers suffer from, and cause many good men to burn out.

The best piece of advice that I received in relation to this was in the form of an anecdote about Tweed Weaving:

In the Western Isles of Scotland the production of Harris Tweed is a Cottage Industry. That means that it is not produced in big textile factories, but by individuals who have a loom in their house - their is, it could be said, the original home-office. However, as idyllic as this picture of sitting in a remote white-washed cottage listening only to the clack of the loom and the roar of the Atlantic is, the reality is that for many the loom became a tyrant: the only way it makes money is if it is producing fabric, so every minute not spent on the loom is a minute that money is wasting away. The tyrant demands that the weaver sit and weave from the moment he rises to the moment he goes to sleep.

Now obviously ministers are not getting paid by how many pages they read, or how many hours they study, but there is a great temptation always to be studying - for the books to become a tyrant. It is easy for that pile of books on the side of his desk, for the teaching commitments he has to cry to him "just a little more study, just another page, just another article, just another hour" which quickly develops into "if you do not sit at your desk, your ministry will fail!" The tyrant in the books demands the service of the minister.

Brothers, we must guard against that danger. We must find our satisfaction in Christ and not in our studies, especially when service to Tyrant Literature results in the neglect of our families, or our health. We must be faithful, and we must not waste time, but ultimately the success of our ministries does not rest on how many hours we studied, but on the will of God.

Beware of the Tyrant of the Books.