British pastor Charles Spurgeon, who lived from 1834 to 1892, was known as the “Prince of Preachers,” but he was open about his struggle with depression. That’s one reason his written sermons are so popular today. He never pretended to be perfect, and his admission of human weakness made his words all the more powerful.
Like Spurgeon, all pastors struggle with emotional and spiritual brokenness. The typical pastor in the U.S. today faces incredible challenges. They struggle to pay the church’s bills, they deal with complaints and dissension in the congregation, they feel inadequate when comparing their churches to bigger ones, they often feel drained after caring for others, and they face invisible attacks from spiritual forces.
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Spurgeon wrote about the thankless job of a pastor:
All mental work tends to weary and to depress … but ours is more than mental work—it is heart work, the labor of our inmost soul. How often, on Lord’s-day evenings, do we feel as if life were completely washed out of us! After pouring out our souls over our congregations, we feel like empty earthen pitchers which a child might break.
Most of my best friends are pastors, and I have seen them at their lowest, washed out and ready to flee to Tarshish like the prophet Jonah. Your pastors, if they are human, need the prayers of the saints to sustain them. Since October is Pastor Appreciation Month, I’m sharing a list that I pray for the pastors in my life. But please don’t just pray for them in October—pastors need to be undergirded constantly!
— Pray they will be surrounded by wise counsel. Pastors make hundreds of decisions, and even the best leaders can forget to consult the Lord about a situation. Proverbs 15:22 (NASB) says: “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed.” Pray that your pastors will invite the wisest advisers into their lives and that God will prevent them from making foolish choices.
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