Church Leader's Advice for Grief Fatigue

Join Dr. Geneus and Senior Pastor Dr. Rudy Moseley, Jr. in this powerful podcast episode as they guide listeners through personal examples of coping with the stress and heartache of many people dying within a brief period. You’ll be encouraged with practical advice on how to strike a healthy ministry-life balance while strengthening your faith. Whether you are facing burnout or feeling overwhelmed by grief or disappointment, this special episode is sure to inspire you on your personal journey towards healing and growth!

Episode Notes:

Dr. Rudy Moseley’s website: https://rudymoseleyjr.com/

Bread of Life International Worship Center: https://www.bol.faith/

The Brink article: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/why-are-so-many-religious-leaders-facing-stress-and-burnout/

NPR: https://www.tpr.org/2022-09-03/facing-burnout-many-faith-leaders-are-leaving-their-ministries

Transcript

Pastor Rudy Moseley 0:04

Pastoring, you can't disengage emotionally. You can't, it's a spiritual occupation. So you're there, you're all there. Everything is present when you're ministering. And so when you've been going through some things, that's why it's so important for self-care.

Dr. Geneus 0:23

Thanks for gracing us with your ears today. You're listening to the Faith to Feel podcast. And I'm your host, Dr. Januas. God has so much more for us to know, experience, and do if we have the faith to feel. Faith should give us courage to feel, to have difficult conversations about our feelings, and to face challenges we might otherwise avoid. That's what this podcast is all about. In our efforts to strive for transparency, we do our best to discuss topics that evoke emotions. It's our hope that the stories you hear will bring understanding and comfort to those who are grieving and for those who are concerned about someone grieving. While this is not our intention, the topics discussed in this episode might be triggering for some audiences. I'm talking with Pastor Rudy Mosley as a part of the series Grieving Out Loud. Pastor Mosley co-pastors Bread of Life International Worship Center in Rhode Island with his beautiful wife LaToya. Welcome to the Faith to Feel podcast, Pastor Rudy.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 1:35

Ah, thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here. Very excited to share and be a part of what you're doing.

Dr. Geneus 1:42

Thank you, Pastor Rudy. I appreciate you being on this program. I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts about grieving and pandemic burnout among church leaders. You personally experienced the death of many people during the pandemic, and you've also been ministering to many people who are grieving. In the last few years, there have been some weeks when five people you know have died within just a week's time. This pandemic has been a stressful and unusual time for church leaders. In an NPR interview for Weekend Edition Saturday in September of 2022, titled Facing Burnout: Many Faith Leaders Are Leaving Their Ministries. A clergy member who resigned said he was tired of feeling overwhelmed all the time. Boston University's publication, The Brink, recently featured an interview with Stephen Sandage, a professor of the psychology of religion and theology. After Sandage was asked by a staff reporter, you found rates of trauma among clergy at higher levels than in post-deployment military personnel. What's causing such a high level of burnout? Sandage says there's a lot of things that can make the job really tough for people who are in religious leadership. We see a lot of direct exposure to suffering. People in religious leadership get to be with folks in the really wonderful times in life, though it's sometimes underrated, is the amount of direct exposure to suffering, difficult losses, deaths, existential crises, and often with a kind of unpredictability to it. They can get called in at a moment's notice. For myself, as a psychologist doing therapy, I would never be called over to someone's house after a family member had just died by suicide. Yet chaplains, clergy sometimes find themselves in situations like that. Professor Sandage goes on to say things have only gotten more intense because of the global pandemic. I think you can relate to this account.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 3:42

Absolutely. Absolutely. So since I've been pastoring, I I've you know had the opportunity to be a part of great moments in people's lives. Um, when people are getting married, it's a high point and you're excited about that. It's a new season. And then when people have children, you are a part of the dedications and everyone's happy and everyone's rejoicing. But then you're also at the close of life. Also, actually, even before the close of life, you're at the battle stage where people may be battling health crisis crisis and battling sickness and disease and helping them to wrap their brain around having faith in God. Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to my loved one? What exactly is going on? Um, struggling with a doctor's report and having faith in that battle internally. And then in some cases, after you've prayed, a person still transitions to the other side. And how do you wrap your brain around that? Did God answer our prayers? Did he not answer our prayers? And then dealing with life after the loss, Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays and holidays and the reminders. Um, so as a pastor, you know, there is a um a level of pressure that you do feel because many look to you for solutions. Many look to you for answers. Um, why is this happening? And I can say personally, in my life, I've gone through a number of losses. Our family has. My wife, she had lost her mother to cancer, her grandmother, her aunt, her sister was murdered in a domestic violence um situation. And we also lost one of our sons. And most recently, she lost her father. And so, as a pastor shepherding people, I can remember when her mother was battling with cancer and the family was meeting, and she had said, Um, Rudy, I want you to do my funeral. I said, What? What? She said, Yep, I want you to do the funeral. There's my mother-in-law. That was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Because at the funeral, I can remember at the wake, and I'm standing there, my wife is bawling her eyes out. My sons, that's their grandmother, they're bawling their eyes out. And I wanted to start crying right then and there, and I felt the Holy Spirit tell me that it's not your time to cry yet, because you represent strength. And I said, I I I didn't sign up for this. This is not this was not in the Bible school training manual. This was not, this was not part of the training. You're not trained for that. And and that was hard watching your family grieve and your grieving as well, but you cannot show that emotion in that moment. And then the day of the funeral, I am standing there going through the order of service, and there was a moment where I couldn't, I couldn't speak. I had no words, and I I was choked up, and I I sat down and I said, God, I can't do this right now. I need you to help me. And I felt the presence of God strengthen me in that moment, and I delivered the message, and there were a lot of people that gave their hearts to the Lord that day. And then after that moment, and we concluded the service, we went to the graveside. And when we were at the graveside, after the service was over, then the Holy Spirit said, Now you can cry. And that's when I broke down holding my wife, and we just cried at the side of the grave, and we stayed there at her mother's grave for a while uh crying. And so I think there are a lot of pastors that feel as though um you have to have solutions to people's questions. Uh folks are like, well, you studied the word, so you should have an insight with God, and in God should download some type of um solution to give answers to people's problems. But that was probably one of the most difficult moments of my life as a minister. And since that time, I mean, I've done a lot of uh funeral services for a lot of different people at different stages in their lives, um, different sets of circumstances. Um, some where people were prepared and the family was prepared, and some where people were not prepared, and it was a shock to everyone. And the big question is, how do I go on from here? And when it's when it's you as the minister, that's a need of ministry. Uh so when our son passed away, I I can remember when our son passed away, uh, I can remember the morning. Um, this was our fourth son, and I can remember the morning. I we had morning prayer at the church, and which was our custom, and I went to morning prayer, and the Lord gave me a word, and the word that he gave me was uh a Proverbs 3.16. Um, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he'll make your path straight. And the revelation that I got in that moment was that there were the sign of the cross is a T to symbolize trust. And I was excited, oh yeah, and everyone was excited about the word. Little did I know that I was getting ready to go through one of the most significant faith battles of my life. So later on that morning, my wife had just gone to get a routine check just to see how the baby was doing. And then this was it was very she's actually going to just go pick up some results. And the doctor said, Let me just go in and check the baby's heartbeat. And normally I'm there with her, but this particular time I didn't go because um it was just she's just picking up results. So he went in to check, and then he ended up calling another nurse and bringing in another machine, and and he said, I need you to go to woman and infants immediately because I can't detect a heartbeat. And she called me and she said, I cannot detect a heartbeat, and um I need you to come to woman and infants. And I said, Okay, God. And I began to pray. Began to pray and say, Okay, Lord, um, I haven't been down this road before. And so we get to the hospital, they run their test, and they're saying, Unfortunately, the baby's the baby has passed. I think we're about four months into the pregnancy. And so I immediately called my spiritual advisor, and I called him up and I said, Um, this is what's going on. So he said, We're gonna pray and we're gonna believe God. Believe God for a miracle. Here I am, the man of God, the faithful man of God, preaching healing to people, laying hands on people, praying and being faithful, going to church and seeking God's face, and here I am facing this crisis. And and I can remember we were so concerned about sharing with our older boys about what we were going through. Very, very concerned because we didn't want their faith to be impacted. So we finally got around to telling them what was happening. And over that weekend, you know, the baby's heart didn't start again. And I can remember my third son, Jace. Jace had said, Dad, you pray for people all the time. Just lay hands on mom's tummy and the baby's heart's gonna start again. And I said, I'll try, but that that's um that's not my call. And so we then went um to the back to the hospital. They checked again, the baby's heart, and then they then they recommended that you know we have what's called a DNC to take out the fetus. And we're like, what? What? Wait, wait, it's a timeout. First, first you're dealing with the trauma of this news, and then now you're gonna go through another traumatic experience. And what they said was the doctor had said, um, or you can go home and see if you pass the baby naturally. So we get home that night, we're already already dealing with the grief and the loss. And this is after uh Latoya's mother had passed away, her aunt had passed away, her grandmother had passed away, her sister was murdered, and now we're dealing with our our child, our son. And that night her stomach started cramping up, and my wife delivered the baby in our house. I picked up our son in our hands, and and I said, What is this? What in the world is happening right now? I can't believe that we're actually experiencing this. This is already traumatic that the baby is gone, but I actually held him in my hands. I held him, I looked at him and I put him in a little container, and then we went to the hospital. We got to the hospital, and they're like, Well, we have to make sure that we scrape out all of the placenta and scrape out everything. And so they did it, and and you know, I think a couple of days later, she had to have another one because the placenta kept growing. And then the third time we went to the doctor, and the doctor had said, This is like in the space of like four days, two days, three days. Yeah. The doctor had said, we're gonna have to treat her with a cancer agent because the fetus is growing. So now at this point, I'm on overload, I'm like emotionally spent, I had nothing to give. I am uh speechless and trying to pray and not knowing what to say when I pray. My son's dead. I picked him up in in my own hands. My wife now has to have two, she has had two surgeries, and now they're talking about treating her with a cancer agent, or have another surgery where they scrape the lining of her uterus, which would run the risk of her not being able to have children anymore. And you know, the the the biggest thing for me was during that moment was I was concerned that I would struggle trusting God again. That's that was one of my major concerns. Like we prayed, and it didn't happen the way we thought it was gonna happen. How can I believe God again? And we decided, we said, okay, we're gonna go with the other um TNC and other surgery, and um and trust God, if He wants us to have another child, He will. And so we did that, and this was all within a week. It was horrible. It was that was probably the most horrible experience I've ever gone through. And then my sons, my oldest boy, he's he became angry, angry at God, and my second son was questioning like what's the purpose of prayer? So I, as the father, I'm now shepherding my family through this moment, and I don't have a frame of reference. So you're shepherding your congregation through things, but now you're shepherding your family through this moment. And I had I can remember the Sunday we were at church, and my son he plays the drums, my oldest son, he was playing the drums, and he was and somebody uh tapped me on the shoulder and said, Look, he's bawling his eyes out while he's playing the drums. And I said, What in the world? I said, Don't play anymore. Come over. And he and I sat at that altar and cried together. We cried, we cried, we cried. And at that point, I knew that I needed to take time off. I knew I needed to shut it down. I gotta focus on my family right now. I can't. I have nothing to give to my spiritual family right now. My my family needs me, and I need my family. And so we decided to take time off. We scheduled different pastors. I took a month off, and then we also um found a counselor and we went to family counseling um because I did not have the tools, I personally didn't have the tools to navigate this, but I was still concerned and during that season, and I would sit in the parking lot crying my eyes out, um, asking God, like, did I do something wrong? Like, did I did I do something wrong? Was I like in sin or something? Like, why we're going through this? You know, there are all kinds of thoughts that go through your head when you're going through a difficult situation that you don't have the words for or answers. And then I was concerned about my faith in the Lord. I was concerned about my son's faith, my children. And that's where um, you know, one of my sons he said, You're not mad at God? And I said, How can I be mad at God when he gave me you? He gave me all of you. I can't get mad at God. And that's when God gave me that revelation. He said, I don't need you to defend me. Leave your children's faith to me. I said, Wow. Wow. And that's in prayer where I just I I he said, I gave you those children, just give them back to me. Let me handle this. And we had a funeral for our son. We had a funeral for him, and um and I think that was helpful for our family going through that. You have some people that think that um, you know, baby's a die in a mother's womb. There's no need to have a funeral. No, that that baby is a life. Baby is a life. He had arms, eyes, and we had the funeral, and then we continued to go to counseling. I went to counseling as a family, and and it was extremely therapeutic. And so I we went to Christian counselor. So I advise anybody, as I mean, this is why we're called the body of Christ. We're called the body of Christ, which with many members, because not everybody has all of the answers or the tools or the skills to help you to navigate through the difficulties of life. So we went to the counselor, and the counselor helped us to navigate through our emotions as a family. And I can remember the epiphany that my oldest son had, um, where he said that he was no longer upset with God anymore. And and this is because I had asked God the question about how how am I going to be evaluated as a father in terms of my success? It's not about what colleges my kids go to, it's not about how much money they make, it's about whether or not they decide to follow and love the Lord with all of their heart, mind, body, soul, and strength, my level of influence on their life. And he said, Rudy, one of your sons is already here. So you're gonna be coming to meet him. And I said, I said, Wow. Okay, and so it's one thing for God to give you a revelation in your spirit about something. It's another thing for your brain to catch up with the revelation and to accept it because rational thought oftentimes competes with revelation. And so as a pastor and as a shepherd, um, that's those are some of the most difficult seasons that I've I've had to go through. And then I forgot this part helping my wife, so I'm a husband and pastor, and watching her go through so much loss and not having the words to say, not having an answer, you feel helpless, you feel helpless, and I can remember um going to God and saying, I can't fix this, I cannot fix this, I cannot heal her pain. And he said to me, He said, That's not your job. I just need you to be there.

Dr. Geneus 21:06

He said so many things that are just really powerful, and in terms of that challenge of ministry, ministry to self, ministry to others, you know, in all sorts of levels. One time God really showed me the limitations of my gifts, even gifts of spirit, right? That there's a reason, you know, say like prophesy in part, like everything is not perfect. It's not everything that you need. Because if we had everything we needed within ourselves, we wouldn't need God, or we'd think we were gods. You know, we would we would be so high-minded in our our earthly bodies that we would we wouldn't look to him. We can see that even in situations where people have more privilege, maybe feel less lost. They oftentimes have this sort of, you know, I I love God, but I don't, I did this on my own, I accomplished this on my own, and and feeling of successfulness and an ability to overcome on their own because they're not maybe experiencing the same challenges that somebody else is feeling, where they're really feel brought to their knees. You know, I don't have the answers. I don't, I don't know what to do. I I don't know what to say, I don't know what to feel, and and really sort of really going before God prostrate because there's we're just so desperate for him, desperate for his answers, desperate for his guidance, because we can't figure it out on our own. And I think it's interesting to think about how, especially if you are over a congregation as a church leader, what you talked about in terms of people coming to you for the answers, coming to you is to be the voice of God, to be the hand of God, even to lay hands on them, to pray the miracles come and all these things. And not that God cannot use you in those ways, but you're still a human being who's also experiencing losses and pain and sometimes needs to step back. You know, one of the things that's kind of interesting is you look at some of the things that church leaders are experiencing during the pandemic, and this interesting study about how the level of almost you know trauma among clergy is really high right now. But I think it's a moment to sort of shine light on what's been happening, maybe more intense now with all the things that are going on, but what's been happening for some time, where people who are in leadership also need to take that time for self-care, self-reflection. They need people to care for them as well. I just recently finished a book, and Jesus revealed to me one of the beautiful things about the spiritual family, or the, and I'm talking about the spiritual family in terms of how he was forming it when he was here on earth, was that those that were close and surrounded him cared for him, like members of their family. They concerned themselves with whether he ate, where he slept, you know, if he was okay, you know, what he was thinking and feeling, if he needed something, if he needed protection. And too often in leadership positions, even though Jesus gave us this great example, the relationship isn't reciprocal, it's one-directional. So it makes sense that a lot of leaders would be burned out. You know, experiencing a loss like you and your wife experienced, and then be, you know, going through that experience, but yet having members of your congregation, I'm sure during that time also coming to you for ministry that must have been quite difficult. How did how did you manage that?

Pastor Rudy Moseley 24:50

Oh, yeah. I mean, we had we've had some folks that like right after our son had passed away, we were scheduled to do a um, I think it was a um marriage renewal, and we were not in a position to do it, and and the couple was upset. We're like, okay, um, we can get you somebody else to do it so that you don't have to change your schedule or whatever, but we have to. And I think it was in Bible school, and his name was Brother Pierce, and I forgot the class that it was, but he helped us as young ministers establish our priorities. He said, first it's your relationship with God, second is the relationship with yourself, third is the relationship with your wife, and then fourth is the relationship with your children. Then it's everybody else, but in that order. He said, Because if you don't have your relationship with God, then you don't have anything. And if you don't take care of yourself, you're not good for anybody. And if you're married and you don't take care of your spouse, or you put your kids above your spouse, your kids are gonna leave. Then you're gonna be looking at each other like what are we doing now? And so and then you can't put ministry above your family. So ministry comes comes uh fifth in that order. So in my uh ministry and my journey with the Lord, I have I I I figured out my pace. Different ministers have different capacities in terms of what they can what they can handle and carry without breaking. And you have to study yourself to know yourself. And it's not that one is better than the other, but you have to know yourself because Jesus often told his disciples, come rest. Come rest a while. And so I have I take the whole month of July off. Now during the pandemic, so I had made the transition to being fully where ministry was going to get my full attention um in 2018, 2017 was when the challenge was coming from the Lord, and then by 2019, I had fully made the transition just before the pandemic. And so pandemic hits, and I'm like, whoo, okay, okay, Lord. And truly, if I were still bi vocational, I don't know if I would have been able to manage the transition because it was a major shift in ministry, in in minister, in ministerial, in the ministerial approach. The message didn't change, but the method did. And it required a lot of adjusting. And something that my spiritual uh big brother had said to me, he said, Um, Rudy, um, it's unbiblical to look backwards, wanting things to go back to the way it was, because that's human nature. I figured it out and I was comfortable. And what causes a level of stress is the unfamiliar. But in your walk with God, he is always leading you to the unfamiliar because it it then leads you to depend even more. That's just the state of a believer. And so we learned some things during the pandemic in terms of how to minister how to minister effectively in during a which there wasn't a manual, there wasn't a book. Nobody we all have to trust God, like and some some of us in ministry said that we couldn't make the shift, couldn't make the transition, and a lot of churches closed. Some pastors gave up the ministry because they just didn't have the tools or um the team to make the adjustment to meet the demands of the congregation. In the midst of taking care of their families and being healthy, and I mean, we had to go through a bout of COVID in our house as well. Um, where and and Pastor Latoya during that season, she had to get the monoclon mono monoclonal, I forgot how to pronounce it, immunoantibodies. She had to get the antibody treatment because she was so sick, and this was right. So, just to give you a chronology, her father dies. We had been taking care of him for an entire year, watching him get better, and then watching a quick and swift decline. He dies about a week before our last son was due. So he dies, we then have the funeral, right after the funeral, we're in the hospital to be induced. Our son is born, we're in the hospital, we get a call, and one of our sons has COVID. I then I'm in the hospital, I start feeling ill right after he was born. I then go and get a COVID test. I'm positive. So we're quarantining in our basement while Latoya and the baby are at the hospital, and now folks at the hospital going in a full hazmat gear. It was just a horrible experience, and then our entire family ends up coming down with COVID, and in the midst of all of this, you're shepherding a congregation, welcoming a new baby into the world, still grieving over the loss of my wife's father, my children's grandfather, and you're still saying, God, I trust you. You could easily ask the question, did we do something wrong? Like, is this Job? Job on steroids? Like, what exactly is happening here? But you come to the conclusion in your walk and you just say, you know what, God, no matter what comes our way, um, we're still gonna trust you. And I think for for us as a family, I think that's what has we've we've gone through so much that we're at that point that no matter what we go through, we're still gonna it's not like I'm gonna stop loving God, it's not like I'm gonna turn my back on God, it's not like I'm gonna backslide and retreat and try. No, no, but I am you brought us through some very difficult life's moments. And and and you kept our sanity we didn't break.

Dr. Geneus 32:05

It's really hard. I think a lot of times one of the, you know, grief can often or death can often be an interruption into our plans. It's not what we want. We know that eventually we're we all do die, but it's that struggle of Lord, really let your will be done, whatever that will is, and that oftentimes it's not it might not be what we're in agreement with or what we want, but it's that struggle. I know at the start of the pandemic, the Lord gave me this vision of his close followers and disciples after his crucifixion being hunkered down in homes. You know, kind of darkness and craziness is happening all around, and they were fearful to go out, to travel, and they just kind of hunkered down and were waiting. They were waiting for direction, and they knew everything had changed. Things were never gonna be the same again. That the way they would go about preaching the gospel or whatever they would be called to do, they didn't know how it was gonna be different, but they knew it was gonna be different and they were afraid. And that that sort of is a a parallel in some ways, though not exact, to what we experienced sort of in the pandemic, where we he was trying to tell me that we were gonna need to be in our homes, we weren't gonna be out and about as much, and we were waiting for direction from God. We should be leaning toward God and asking for direction because sort of revival's coming, or the way we do things in ministry and in relationship to others needed to change. And as you said, some churches have been able to adapt their ways of ministering in very difficult times, and some have closed their doors. And it's it's interesting to think about. I mean, some of the research suggests that we're not gonna go back to doing some of the things the way we used to do them. It's not gonna be the same anymore. There's some things, there's some adaptions of the way we do ministry, the way we communicate, spend time with one another, where we're moving online, we're doing more virtual things, and that's gonna stay with us. And we're we're reaching further beyond geographical boundaries as well in the process and connecting with across more cultures and space and time in really interesting ways. And it's also interesting because there are a lot of changes that were happening in terms of the way people grieved as well, right? So even before the pandemic, people were having opportunities to grieve people online. There's really interesting things going on with that. But then you also have the situation where you lose, I know we lost several loved ones, and it's not just to COVID, your people died of cancer and you know, other sorts of things. And during the pandemic, it just seems like there were just more deaths all the time and still happening. And you can't necessarily travel to be with your loved ones or have that communication or that closure that you might have had before the pandemic. So there's so much more, so many changes. I love what you said about how God moves with us and change, and that we have to sort of embrace the idea that this is part of Christian walk, is to not be stuck in something, but God is always challenging us to be willing to adapt and follow in following his will. So, what advice would you give to church leaders about the season and what God is really calling them to do, or or how we should adjust our the our approaches to ministry? Because you're you have a ministry that's still thriving and growing and active.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 35:56

I think um what I've learned in the past three years is what I believe is the intent of God's intent for life's circumstances, and I'll explain. At the end of the day, when it's all said and done, what is the end game? The end game is people depending on God, not getting comfortable being independent of God, but becoming comfortable with being dependent on God. So every circumstance and every situation that we come up against where our resources can't respond, and so we get anxious, we get nervous, we get concerned, because that's the source of anxiety. The source of anxiety is I can't meet the demand, whatever the demand is, which then requires me now to depend. I can't fix this on my own, therefore I need to depend, which means then I need to build my relationship. So whether I'm a pastor or a business leader, a husband, a wife, a kid, it doesn't matter. Everything leads to dependency. The what happened in the garden was a spirit of independence. And and that's what we're battling here a spirit of independence. Even when we look at our democratic process, democracy is man's best effort to govern himself without God, and we see how that's turning out. But when it comes out to each individual, when you talk about being, I speak about being a kingdom citizen, and the reason why is because when you get saved and you give your life to Jesus, you enter into his kingdom, and he is an awesome king that says, I want to take care of you, and I'm gonna take care of you. This is a partnership and a collaboration. So how I can so when we start talking about say the Sabbath, the Sabbath requires trust because in your mind you're thinking, I gotta work, I gotta work to make money, I gotta work, and then he's saying, No, I want you to shut it down and trust me. I want you to shut it down and trust that I am the one that gives you the power to create wealth, I'm the one that opens the doors, I'm the one. So I need you to put this into practice so you can see me move. I need you to obey my word so you can see that that it's not just a figment of your imagination, that there is power in this, in the principles of obedience. There is power there. I will take care of you. And when he says, I want you to approach me like a child, because kids don't worry about anything, they just live and enjoy life. There is not a hint of worry in them at all. And so he's like, and I remember um years ago, the Lord had said, Rudy, every time you worry, you insult me. I said, Oh God, help me. I like the guy who was like, Oh, I believe, help my unbelief. Because I was like, Um Lord, help me, help me to help me to grow in my level of dependency. Because, and the only way to do that is to build your capacity through life's circumstances where you feel overwhelmed, then you pray, and the peace that passes all understanding guards your heart and your mind. Situation hasn't changed, but something happened inside of you. Something happened where you're no longer feeling overwhelmed or overcome. And the other part that I've learned, and I'm still learning, is trusting his timing. I think that's what causes the majority of the anxiety. You're not moving fast enough. Don't you can't? We're perishing. Don't you see the storm? Like, don't you see, don't you see what's going on? I can't, you know, and we get I can remember there was a time where um when I first moved to Rhode Island and I was in Bible school and I was struggling with my tuition and I remembered um driving in the car and having a moment where I was shouting in the car, shouting and yelling at God. You don't care. I said some really bad things, right? And I had this moment in the car. After I had my little moment, I hear a voice, are you done? I said, Oh Lord. I was like, I said, Yeah. He said, Don't you ever do that again? Don't you ever do that again? Don't ever approach me like that again. That's not I am God, and right now you're on a journey to get to know who I am. So there's circumstances that I will lead you to. Remember, Jesus was led into the wilderness. He was led. And the purpose of the wilderness is to get you to know that he is who he says he is. You don't have water, so he can show you, I'll make water come out of a rock. You don't have food, so he can show you, I'll make manna come out of the dew on the ground. Uh you don't have meat, I'll make the the Red Sea, I'll bring you to a place where you can't do anything, and then I'll tell you what to do, and then I'll do my part. I'll make oh strong wind blow and make a Red Sea. And so all of the experiences, all of the tests, all of the trials, all of the storm is to bring you to this place of Yeah, you got it, God. Um, I trust you. I trust your judgment. I trust your judgment. Even when I don't understand, I trust, and I've I also I I've um come to the realization in my life through the experiences that I've gone through so far, is that he does not have to answer all of my questions. And that certain questions he will answer when he thinks I'm ready for the answer. And certain questions will be answered when I get to heaven. Certain questions are not going to be answered now, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with not having all of the answers. That does not change my level of trust. I would not have come to that conclusion without some of the tests that I've gone through.

Dr. Geneus 42:30

I have this movie that I like, and people laugh at me when I tell or I show them the movie. It's called The Apostle. It's written and performed, and I think even directed by Robert Duvall. He's a Christian actor. He's been doing, he's acting for many years. He's in a lot of films, non-Christian films, but this is sort of a Christian piece that he produced. I believe his name is Robert Duvall. I hope I'm not saying the wrong name, but it's called The Apostle. So in the film, he's a pastor of a small, well, not a small congregation, a congregation in the South. And he sort of, in his frailties of, you know, the humanness that we have, he makes a number of mistakes, and he's definitely not a perfect person, a perfect pastor. He has this calling to God, but he's fall, he's fallen in many ways into sin. And he everything is sort of taken away from him, his church, his wife, his family, and he's travels to his mother's home. And there's a scene that I I really love that I think captures so many things. And he's in the in his former bedroom or visiting his mother in a guest room, and he's just talking to God, and he's like, God, I'm so angry with you right now. And he's just screaming, you know, and one of the neighbors calls the mother and says, What's going on over there? Tell your son to calm down. And she says, No, he's just talking to God. And it's sort of the I love the realness of it. It's just it's the only film, I think, that in that sort of like genre of Christian movies, that fictional Christian movies that really sort of depicts the grittiness of during that time, or at least of films that were made in that time, the sort of grittiness of the the real relationship with God that in our sort of brokenness or nakedness, that we make many mistakes. And people who look like they've got it all together don't necessarily have it all together. But in but I love the sort of it's the real relationship, what you're talking about. It's the conversations with God, it's the the desire to really know him and live with him. And that as a comfort to you when you're going through things like grief or when you're you realize that you're experiencing some sort of challenge. So I love that sort of example that you offered. And it made me think of this film because it's just, it's just that that is what it is sometimes. Sometimes we're angry with God, sometimes we yell at God, sometimes we don't understand, sometimes we just don't get an answer. We don't get the answer that we want.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 45:12

Right?

Dr. Geneus 45:13

It's not that miracles don't happen. It just might not be the miracle that we want that happens. And we might not have, and we might not have the perspective of it in in this world, in this body. It might be when we get to heaven, he reveals even more of the secrets of heaven that we have an understanding of what's happening here. And it's hard for us to have that perspective that this is just time, what seems like a long time to us is nothing to God, no time to God, right? So our lives are so short, but so long to us.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 45:52

Even when we think about healing, right? You know, sometimes we pray for people to get healed. But everybody that was in the Bible that got healed, they still died. So sometimes we're praying for healing for our own reasons, and God's like, their time is done. Like you're asking them to stay in this imperfect world, and I want to get them to the other side so they can go on with the next season of what I have planned for them, and you're getting upset because they got a promotion. Like, really? And you're gonna be going there too, and so I think when it comes on to death and grief, it's shifting the especially for a believer, it's different for a non-believer, but for a believer, you have a perspective of it is a celebration. It is a celebration. Sometimes we grieve and we mourn, but it's also a celebration of life and a celebration of their promotion that they lived a life and you have evidence of the life that they lived. So it's I just have a uh just an interesting perspective. It doesn't change the pain though, doesn't change the pain, but you understand and you know that they're in a better situation than you are.

Dr. Geneus 47:24

Yeah, it's a good point. I'm thinking about my father's mother, who suffered with a number of illnesses for a number of years, and she was widowed a long time and loved the Lord so much, but always said, I want to go be with my husband. She missed her husband that much. That was what always what she said. And she had a lot of a huge family, a lot of children, lots of love, and people who just couldn't bear, no matter how frail she was, to see her leave this earth. It just wasn't our will. She was so loved, it's just like, how can we live without her? And I remember us, we were several of us were gathered in a nursing facility, and some people were saying to her, you know, just clinging to her, trying to get her to cling on to life. And and she's so close to transitioning to being with God in heaven. And there was this light that came into the room, and she hadn't been able to walk for a number of years because she was diabetic and had some problem with her feet, and that was very frustrating to her. She was a worker and she always wanted to be able to do and take care of others. A light comes in the room and she starts talking to the light because her bed was up against a window. She says, You mean I'm not gonna have to wear any shoes? You know, and her face just lit up and she was so excited. And one of her daughters said, Mom, mom, what's the matter? You you need socks, you you need your shoes? What is it? You know, and I thought, oh she's having this miraculous moment where it's being revealed to her, she's getting a new body. Not only is she not gonna need any shoes, she's gonna be able to run. She's not gonna have issues with health. Yep, she's gonna be with her husband, she's gonna be with God. And so I remember saying, Yes, we need to pray. We need to honor her in prayer while she's here with us and release her to go to heaven and let her know, pray that we will be okay, because she's been ready to go, she's been ready to go for a long time and hanging on. Of course, that's a very different situation with an elderly person who's lived a long life, who has loved ones to surround them than some of the other situations and circumstances that people die in. But it is it is sort of recognizing the the whole picture of grief, that it's sad, that there's there can be joy as a believer, there's sadness, there's all these things. So we're not one thing, we don't need to feel one thing. Our feelings can change and we can embrace all of it. I think that's one of the reasons that Jesus came and walked on this earth as man to show us that emotions were not something that he was telling us not to have. He was showing us that love is that sort of passion of all of those things. It's all those things, and it's okay.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 50:20

Absolutely. I mean, even when you think about how we handle Lazarus' situation, I mean, he knew he was gonna go raise him from the dead, but he still cried. Right. So it's like, what are you crying for when you know because he wanted to show there are moments you're gonna cry. You're gonna cry because and it's okay. It's okay. And they captured that. Jesus wept, they captured that. And so I'm like, so it there's no right or wrong way to feel. You just have to know that as a pastor that's shepherding people, you have to be mindful of when you need to take care of yourself, when you need to step back. And I had a conversation just yesterday with a pastor friend of mine who was shepherding his congregation through a very, very difficult um set of um circumstances with someone who had just recently died, who's part of their leadership team. And I told him, but and this person was not just a member of the congregation, this person, they were friends. They were friends. And I said, first and foremost, yes, you was his pastor, but you were you lost a friend. Like, you gotta understand that part too. There's a part of you that's gonna grieve over the loss of your friend. I said, you may have to take some time off. Don't feel like you have to be Superman, um, superman of faith. That'll crush you, it'll catch up to you emotionally. If you don't, if you don't allow the process to take its toll, it's gonna manifest in another way. It's gonna come out. If you haven't allowed the grief process to run, and you haven't given yourself time to heal emotionally, it's gonna come out in some other way that it's gonna be unhealthy. And so for me as a pastor, I have in my calendar, I have a month that I have off that I schedule every year. During the pandemic, I did not do it because we were still trying to figure out what needed to be done. But historically, I took off uh this past July for the first time in like probably three years. And some ministers are like, Are you serious? I'm like, the church isn't hinging on me. And if the church is built off of a personality, you got a problem. You got a serious problem if people Paul said, I didn't come to you with eloquency of speech, I came with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith would not rest on me, but it would be in God. And so I have like other moments and I have scheduled where I am not preaching, I am just going on a getaway, I am going to refresh, regroup, because preaching is intense. Preaching is intense. You're not only are you are you laboring to to to hear from God for a word for people, you're then entering into two realms. And and the spirit realm, demons are not just sitting by watching you just do your thing, you're dealing with spiritual interference all week long, because he said, if I could smite the shepherd, I'll smite the sheep, so you're you're constantly on no matter what, as a pastor, so that nothing can hinder your delivery of that word on Sunday, because or any other time that you speak, because I mean you preach a sermon with your choices and your life more than the sermon that you preach with your mouth. So when you understand that as a minister, and you understand that you are God's representative in the earth, you it's not like I've worked other jobs before, and they're jobs that you can be present and not emotionally present. You're present physically, you can get the job done, you're totally disengaged mentally, emotionally, you get the job done, you go home. Pastoring, you can't disengage emotionally, you can't, it's a spiritual occupation. So you're there, you're all there, everything is present when you're ministering, and so when you've been going through some things, that's why it's so important for self-care, and that's why Jesus said, take a Sabbath. I know how I know how you were created. It even says in Genesis chapter one, he worked six days, took a day off. God rested, God, God rested. What what now? If God rested, what do you think about you? What do you think about? And so when I when I think about the the longevity of the the work that God has called me to, I recognize that if you don't take moments to rest, you're gonna burn yourself out. And what good is that to anybody? It's not good to anybody, and so so I'm mindful, and even those that I um advise other pastors, um, I tell them, you have to build this in into your because that's part of your ministry. Part of your ministry is rest.

Dr. Geneus 55:21

Good word, good word to end on as well. You also are an educator, Dr. Mosley. Uh, and God brings together your all of your gifts in a way to help uplift other leaders, you provide opportunities, they don't have to be members of your congregation, but leaders can come and connect with you. You have leadership courses and classes, you're a great resource. You just have a passion for helping develop leadership. Where might somebody, any of our listeners, find information about some of the leadership opportunities that you offer?

Pastor Rudy Moseley 56:00

So they can go to Rudy at Rudymosley Junior.com, and that's M-O-S-E-L-E-Y. That's my website. And there you'll find different links to my various platforms, and one is for training. And then we have the Mosley Leadership Group Academy there so folks can figure out and learn more about some of the courses that we have online, and then also some upcoming courses that we have coming down the pike.

Dr. Geneus 56:29

So even if they're not local to Rhode Island or New England, they could find more information about Bread of Life International Worship Center in Rhode Island online and watch some of your sermons or join you for prayer every morning at 5 a.m.

Pastor Rudy Moseley 56:47

Yes. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So they can go to bol.faith and once you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see all of our social media uh links YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and you can get to any of our messages uh that way.

Dr. Geneus 57:03

Thank you so much, Pastor Rudy. I really appreciate you sharing all these wonderful stories and advice with the listeners. I pray that it really reaches down into some people's hearts and encourages them, and they can find some hope in your messages. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Faith to Feel podcast. Like and follow this podcast so you can hear more insightful conversations like this one, and share this episode with someone who will benefit from hearing it. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5 4. You'll find the Faith to Feel podcast on all of your favorite podcast streaming sites, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.