One of the hardest parts of ministry was not about my sacrifice or suffering, but watching other people’s lives degenerate and explode.
I didn’t mind giving up my time and energy to help people. I didn’t mind the personal cost that much. Sure there were moments of frustration or self-pity, especially when I couldn’t afford to eat good food, but it was part of the gig, a thing I was resigned to. Plus I knew that on Judgment Day none of that stuff would loom large.
I did not resign from being a pastor because of my own suffering. I resigned because I couldn’t bear to know that much about so many people, give so much effort to help them hear God’s Word, yet see them reject it and do the exact opposite, and then watch their inevitable demise.
It broke my heart.
I watched devastating things happen to many people and families. I mean terrible, awful stuff.
In many cases it was stuff I preached and counseled about. Stuff I saw coming. Stuff I prayed about with anguish for hours. Stuff I warned individuals about. All for naught.
Any time I expressed this idea of the pain of watching people’s lives explode, people always lectured me about me. “Well, you can’t fix people. That was your mistake. You can’t take it personal.”
No. See, you’re missing my point.
I wasn’t taking it personal. I was mourning and weeping for people who didn’t even know any better to be weeping and mourning over their own messed up lives.
This isn’t some kind of arrogant, prideful, “If only they had listened to me they would have been saved” Messiah complex thing.
This is simply the absolute devastation I felt in the core of my being watching people slowly reject God and slip toward hell.
It wasn’t about me not getting props or respect or attention. I wouldn’t care who got that. I just hated watching more people desert the faith and wither away.
The one thing that consoled me was seeing so many faithful people in the Bible feel this same thing.
The Apostle Paul said he would rather be accursed from Christ if it meant his kindred Israelites would be saved. He said he had continual sorrow in his heart for them.
Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” I recognized my own inadequacy, my own struggle with sin, and then seeing so many others go down and lose the fight. Seeing it all fall apart. Watching the church disintegrate as a byproduct of lives disintegrating.
Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem because how often He would have gathered them as a hen gathers her chicks, but they would not be gathered. Jesus was prophesied as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
Without this testimony of Scripture I would have felt alone. Elijah and I would be weeping by ourselves. But there are so many more who feel the pain and weep.
I wept for 20 years over people and prayed continually for them. Nothing seemed to matter. I faithfully did my job as best I could according to Biblical standards. I hung in there as long as I could.
But I’m a guy who feels things. I wish I wouldn’t, but I did and still do. I still weep when I think of the church, the people, and the disasters I witnessed. I did it as long as I could.
Although the urge to go back into pastoral ministry pops up occasionally, the memories of the pain keep me unable to do so. Call me a wimp or a quitter. The Lord will judge me. I say with Paul, “for me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, I judge not my own self.”
The Lord will judge me at that Day. I imagine we’ll commiserate, and I look forward to a nice long talk while we walk on a trail through the woods and in the end, a snack, and a hug from my Lord and Savior.
__________________________
If you’d like to hear more of my accumulated pastoral “wisdom,” I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!
Failing Pastor 