Today I found myself thinking about… well, everything I’m thinking about. My mind wandered through thoughts of family—children, grandchildren, close friends. And if you’re in ministry, you know how quickly the mind shifts toward other ministries and ministry leaders: how they function, how healthy they are, what’s working, what’s failing. You think about your own past, the future you hope to build, and all the space in between.

In other words—you’re thinking about life.

If we’re not careful, all these layers of thought begin pulling more and more time and energy out of us. I catch myself so loaded with thoughts that it becomes difficult to find space for the things I want to do, or even room to explore new ideas God is stirring. Our thoughts jump from one category to another, and often we never reach a conclusion. Every unresolved thought demands more time, more emotional investment, more processing.

This morning, as I was contemplating what is actually consuming my time in ministry, I realized something surprising: it isn’t my actions that take the most energy—it’s my thinking. It’s how much time I spend mentally visiting all these different areas.

When you oversee a ministry, you are constantly thinking about what needs to change, how to move people forward, how to rightly discern the season and the future. Your heart weighs past prophetic words, current understanding, and what God is revealing next. You’re navigating the daily needs that keep a ministry functioning smoothly. And woven through all of this is the continual examination of your own calling—making sure you are on track, while also ensuring the ministry is on track. These are separate, yet deeply intertwined.

Then there’s the mental and spiritual load of ministering to people. When teaching or preaching, I often hear the thoughts of those I’m ministering to. Sometimes you hear their internal questions as you speak; sometimes you hear them later in counseling sessions. The bigger the person’s problem, the more mental space it occupies as you seek wisdom, clarity, and the right counsel.

All of this began to reveal something to me: many of these thoughts are pushing out the space I need for meditation on the Word of God. The noise of a day begins to crowd out the eternal whisper.

And then the question comes:

How much time do we spend meditating on what is eternal compared to what is temporary?

At the core, this is about the focus of our heart. We love people—so naturally we carry their burdens, their needs, their decisions. But we also love the eternal realm and the things of God. And it can feel like we are constantly living with a divided heart between the temporal needs of people and the eternal voice of God.

So the real question becomes:

How do we navigate the daily flood of thoughts and remain effective without burning out?

Paul gives us the key: “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
That means we have the ability—and the responsibility—to bring order to our thought life.

Paul also instructs us to “think on things that are pure, holy, lovely, and of good report.” Part of taking control of our thoughts is learning to bring them to a conclusion. Many thoughts keep spinning because we haven’t yet heard God concerning them. We keep analyzing, hoping new information will come, when what we actually need is the wisdom of God.

We need to pause. Step aside. Sit with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Let our spirit be renewed.
Enter that place where the depths of His wisdom have no end.

Some problems simply have no answer outside of that place.

We think on past failures hoping not to repeat them. We try to help people make right decisions, but their answers can’t come from our intellect—they must come from the eternal realm and the wisdom of God.

I’m also convinced that we must return to meditating on the Word and the mysteries God is revealing. Those mysteries carry answers that settle the noise, calm the racing mind, and anchor us in truth. They quiet the mental chaos because they draw us back to what is eternal.

I have an analytical mind, and that can get me in great trouble if I’m not careful. But what I’ve learned is this:
If I take that analytical nature and aim it toward the Word of God, it becomes a gift—not a burden.

In the end, the question “Where does time go?” often brings us back to this simple truth:

Time is often lost not in what we do, but in what we allow our mind to carry. And God invites us—daily—to lay those thoughts down, listen for His wisdom, and live from the eternal place where clarity replaces chaos