“How did I have so much more capacity in college than I do now?”

Invisible Responsibilities...

We can be so blind to how much invisible responsibilities weigh.

It’s different when the buck stops at you.

When you are the point person instead of living under someone else’s umbrella.

We might ask, “How did I have so much more capacity in college than I do now?”

We didn’t.

Actually, other point leaders above us held the invisible pressures of responsibility while we developed and took on partial responsibilities underneath.

This is the professor thinking through how the class flows in addition to his content preparation.  This is you leading a hundred teens or leaders but under another director or pastor who oversaw all of the conference or church bills and coordination that you would've drowned in.  This is being able to earn and spend money as a teen while not having to carry the full pressure of the whole family and mortgage. 

There can be this false sense of how great we are growing up without knowing or acknowledging how much invisible responsibilities are being held by someone else until we become the point person.  Until we become independent.  Until we become the point leader where the buck stops.

This is one reason why a youth pastor with a group of 300, might start as a lead pastor of a group of 75 people.  It’s a big jump carrying the weight of the whole church family rather than a certain group and ministry budget underneath a pastor’s lead of the entire budget and vision.

           

I think this invisible factor makes life extra hard after college: 

one of the unexpected parts of growing up that people don’t see is the invisible weight of being the point person.

If a senior pastor who did absolutely nothing but carry the weight of his title and expectations, I believe this alone holds an invisible responsibility and greater weight than most could ever imagine or experience anywhere else.

We take for granted growing up being under the umbrella of our leadership… parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, etc.  From underneath, we pridefully tell our pastors/parents/bosses/teachers what they need to do differently, but 90% of the time we would personally fail to jump the gap if we tried because we underestimate or don’t know the invisible responsibilities they carry.

We must be strong and realize as we “back track” after college into building our independent lives and careers, that we didn’t backtrack. 

It’s just now we carry the invisible responsibilities as we continue to grow and mature past where we once were before.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.  Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree (with such big branches), so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.

(Mk 4:32/ Matt 13:31-32)

God, help me to accept the growth curve from living under someone else's shade to creating shade for others.