José Luis Navajo - Mondays with My Old Pastor: Sometimes All We Need Is a Reminder from Someone Who Has Walked Before Us

Praise for
Mondays with My Old Pastor

Every now and then I come across a book I cant get out of my head. Mondays with My Old Pastor is one of those books. I guarantee youll be thinking about it long after you put it down.

Andy Andrews
New York Times
best-selling author of How Do You Kill 11
Million People?; The Noticer; and
The Travelers Gift

Mondays with My Old Pastor brings us face to face with the frequent disappointments of our Christian journey, while offering us a wonderful encounter between two pastors: one who has faithfully finished his career with perseverance, and another who is just beginning. The counsel of the elder strengthens the spirit of the young one as he sends him back on his way. It will probably do the same for those struggling with the same disappointments who read this captivating work of Jos Luis Navajo.

Eugenio Orellana
Founder and International
Director, Latin American
Association of Christian
Writers

Mondays with My Old Pastor qualifies as a pastor peer support group all its own. Research bears out the experience of the books narrator: approximately 10 percent of clergy are depressed at any given time, and all clergy are challenged to balance competing demands. This books passes on helpful wisdom and the comfort of shared experience.

Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, PhD
Research Director of the Duke
Clergy Health Initiative

There are few books I read that make it to my favorite pile. But Mondays with My Old Pastor now sits among those books. There is so much wisdom to savor in its pages... so much important conversation in every chapter. It is for the discouraged minister, the questioning spiritual soldier, and every believer in between. The words from Jose Luis Navajos old pastors lips are Jesus-words, and I felt every one.

Lisa Whittle
Author, Speaker, Advocate

Mondays
WITH
My Old Pastor

Sometimes, all we need is a reminder from
someone who has walked before us

Jos Luis Navajo

2012 Jos Luis Navajo

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Unless otherwise marked, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked niv are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Some of the stories in this book are legends or myths that are not true but are used to illustrate a point.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Navajo, Jos Luis.

Mondays with my old pastor / Jos? Luis Navajo.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-0-8499-4725-4 (trade paper)

1. ClergyAppointment, call, and election. 2. Vocation, Ecclesiastical. 3. Pastoral theology. 4. VocationChristianity. 5. Career changes. 6. Burn-out (Psychology)Religious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4011.4.N38 2012

253.2dc23

2011053193

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 5 4 3 2 1

To Querit

Your smile lights up a thousand lights
during my discouraged times.

To Miriam

Every day you show us that adolescence also
has magical treasures that we as parents can
enjoy. Amazed at your maturity, I sometimes ask
myself, Is she my daughter or my mother?

And to you, Gene

Your unshakable love, closeness, and loyalty weave together
the threads that hold my comet of hope high in the sky.

Contents

Introduction:
A Cross in the Desert

The First Monday:
Angels in the Desert

The Second Monday:
Powerful Weakness

The Third Monday:
Servant of God or Church Executive?

The Fourth Monday:
The Biggest Disappointment

The Fifth Monday:
Rips in the Soul

The Sixth Monday:
My Wife Is Deaf

The Seventh Monday:
Admirable Faith

The Eighth Monday:
What Astonishes and What Transforms

The Ninth Monday:
Its Not How You Start but How You Finish

The Tenth Monday:
The Minutes That Make Life Profitable

The Eleventh Monday:
Scars

The Twelfth Monday:
Smoke in the Chimney

An Unexpected Meeting:
Summoned with Urgency

The Last Monday:
The Dream

Conclusion:
Everything Is by Grace

I would not have been able to write this story without the people who inspired it.

To the thousands of men and women who with great dedication take care of the small parcel of land where God has planted them: thank you for digging your feet in and getting your hands dirty in the clay of this holy work.

I give my heartfelt thanks to Thomas Nelson and their excellent staff for believing in this humble work and for helping it come to life. My wish is that this child of paper and ink brings happiness and blessing to many lives.

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my forty-sixth birthday.

Despite the fact that I would have preferred not seeing so many candles on the cake, it was a nice day. There were surprises, hugs, and an abundance of sincere affection. What more could one ask for?

Nothing was missing, not even unwrapping a beautiful gift to discover that it contained exactly what I needed! Yet not even the joyful singing of Happy Birthday, which was sung out of tune and not in rhythm, thrilled me.

At the end of the day, while I was picking up the wrapping paper from the gifts and putting the leftover cake in the refrigerator, I couldnt stop asking myself, Why do I feel this way even on my birthday?

Deep in some uncertain part of my soul persisted a strange exhaustion that was difficult to explain and hard to endure. Im referring to something that is greater than mere tiredness. It has more to do with emotions rather than muscles. It is more related to the soul rather than the body.

I am an evangelical pastor, and for some time I had felt... how can I explain it? I cant seem to find the exact word to describe it.

Let down?

No, not at all.

Disillusioned?

No, not that either.

Tired?

Yes, I believe thats it... or something similar.

Please understand me; Im not saying that Ive taken the wrong road in life. If I were to be born all over again, if God were to give me the gift of another life, I would ask Him to let me make the same investmentthe exact same one I have made with the years that He has given me up until now. That is not presumption. Its gratitude.