A pastor’s life is not an easy one. Here’s a typical day for one pastor I know: up at 5 to spend time with the Lord, head to the gym at 6 where he spends 30 minutes swimming laps, then runs and lifts weights. He is in the office by 8 and has meetings all day. His daily planner—one dedicating an entire page to a single day—is completely full. Every hour has a meeting or telephone conference. His evenings and weekends are similarly structured. Frankly, I am not sure whether to admire him or pity him. But I do not question him: decades of experience have taught him the level of busy-ness necessary for his work. He is the administrative pastor of a very large church. He carries a great deal of responsibility. It is not an easy job.
And it’s not just the hours or the stress. I recently imagined myself in my pastor’s shoes, and I instantly knew that my life would not be my own. Neither my work life, nor my home life, nor my hobbies. What I mean is this:
If you are in the ministry, every other aspect of life must submit itself to that one highest calling.
What a minister does with his hobbies is between him and God–but he can’t just involve himself in anything that might cross his mind. There are limitations on ministers’ choices that do not burden laymen.
To illustrate my point, imagine a minister who decides to write crime dramas as a hobby. Will he write cuss words or will his cops and criminals never use bad language? It’s certainly possible to write novels without cuss words. But it is unusual in today’s market. If the books begin to sell, will the pastor-author use his real name or a pseudonym? If the publisher wants him to spend a month doing a coast-to-coast book tour, will the preacher drop his church responsibilities–not only sermons, but also weddings, funerals, hospital visits and more–to run around the nation promoting his “brand”? The point is, a pastor is a pastor 24-hours a day. He cannot take off his “pastor hat” to put on a “novelist hat.”
The preacher is a preacher full-time. His family, his hobbies, his evenings and weekends off, his vacations—everything in his life must submit to the pastoral calling. That is a remarkably selfless way to live.
Most of us do not appreciate how much freedom pastors surrender when they surrender to the ministry.
When God called Jonah to travel east to preach to the sprawling city of Jonah’s enemies, Ninevah, Jonah did not sit around passively ignoring God. Instead, he took action, immediately running to the ocean to secure passage on the first ship he could find that would take him west—as far from Ninevah as possible. Jonah probably hoped God would find someone else, Jonah’s fellow-prophet, Amos, perhaps.
Instead, God went after Jonah, sending a terrible storm to the Mediterranean Sea. Everyone on the ship was screaming, struggling, and praying. Everyone but Jonah, who was fast asleep in the bottom of the ship. The captain woke Jonah, “What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God!” Jonah 1:6.
The men cast lots to discover who was at fault. The lot fell to Jonah. They asked him who he was and what he did to bring this supernatural storm upon them.
“Take me up and cast me into the sea. For I know that for my sake, this tempest is upon you” Jonah 1:12.
The men were terrified. What if they threw Jonah overboard and only made this angry God angrier still? But Jonah insisted. So they tossed the stubborn prophet overboard, and the sea calmed instantly: “the sea ceased from her raging” Jonah 1:15.
I bet Jonah expected the next scene in this story to be his drowning. He was prepared to die—as long as he didn’t have to talk to those horrible Ninevites. But God had other plans.
“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God” Jonah 1:17–2:1.
Wait. What? It took Jonah three days of sloshing around in the darkness of a whale’s belly before he was ready to pray? And this guy’s a prophet?
Once he began praying, Jonah humbled himself. “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple … But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay thee what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord” Jonah 2:7,9.
Have you ever disobeyed God? Probably. Did God send a whale after you? Probably not.
But God keeps his messengers on a short leash: I believe God expects a deeper level of commitment from the men and women he calls into full-time Christian service:
“Let not many among you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, you shall incur a stricter judgment” James 3:1.
Pray for the ministers God has placed in your life. They face challenges you cannot imagine and will never experience. God calls many of them to walk difficult roads, through minefields of often unfair and undeserved criticism (not to mention the sometimes “deserved” criticism). People are extremely hard on ministers, and even more so in this age of entitlement. Pray for those who teach the word, “that God may open a door for the word, that they may proclaim the mystery of Christ” Colossians 4:3.
Dear God, fill us with gratitude for those who teach and preach the word to us. Bless our pastors and our churches. Fill them with grateful people who share love and encouragement with your men and women who work in full-time ministry. May we be a blessing to those in leadership.
AΩ
Household Words: 