from The Donelson Fellowship
A few years ago, I grew discouraged in ministry. I was in my early thirties, and after several exciting years in the Lord's work, my initial puppy energy was undermined by a handful of strength-sapping adversities. Ministry suddenly became hard and grimy and thankless. Virtually overnight, I found myself a colander instead of a container. Till then, I had been a reservoir of stamina and positivism. Now my motivation and morale drained away through a hundred holes. I wanted to quit. I'll never forget lying in bed at night visualizing the devil standing over me repeatedly plunging a knife labeled "Failure" into my heart. It was during those days that I learned this: Discouragement is the occupational hazard of ministry, and some of the most famous and faithful servants through church history struggled with billowing depression. Take Charles Spurgeon, for example. Despite being the most far-famed and successful preacher of his day, he was often so afflicted with depression that he could hardly function. He once delivered a lecture entitled "The Minister's Fainting Fits" which he started with these words: As it is recorded that David, in the heat of battle, waxed faint, so may it be written of all the servants of the Lord. Fits of depression come over the most of us... The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy. Why? Most of us grow discouraged because of four things: The first is friction. I once assumed that burnout in the ministry was caused chiefly by trying to do too much, but the hidden root of burnout is friction in our relationships. I have a friend who works as a relational consultant to business organizations. He recently told me that the most dysfunctional groups he ever works with are local church staffs. In my visits to missionaries on overseas fields, I've found that the greatest stress points are in the area of interpersonal relationships between missionaries, and that observation has been collaborated by surveys and academic studies. The second cause is fatigue. Americans in general are the most exhausted people in the world. A friend of mine, a minister, recently told me he felt like a goldfish swimming around in a blender two-thirds full of water. "And someone's finger is on the high switch," he said. We're supposed to be sheep in green pastures, but we've become goldfish in whirling blenders. Americans coast-to-coast are tired, tense, worn-out, over-extended, and under-funded. Thirty to fifty percent of us suffer some degree of sleep deprivation; whereas earlier generations were in bed about nine hours per night, the average adult now gets less than seven hours sleep. And when we're weary physically, we become worn down emotionally. The third factor is feelings of failure. Notice I didn't say "failure" but "feelings of failure," for I genuinely believe that in God's will there is no failure and out of his will there is no success. But the perception of failure can dog us relentlessly. We work our fingers to the bone, but when we sink into bed at night, we aren't sure we've really accomplished anything of eternal significance. Martin Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, has asserted in his writings that the greatest cause of "learned helplessness" and depression is the belief that our actions will be futile. The fourth factor in ministerial discouragement is fewness of number. Success nowadays almost always comes framed in digital terms. Everything in judged by numbers, by nickels and noses, and that philosophy has seeped into our view of church work. I remember how defeated I used to feel after attending pastors' conferences and hearing successful ministers tell of their thousands who showed up every week. My seventy-five souls looked mighty small the next Sunday. Many other factors, of course, can contribute to ministerial depression. Yet for what it's worth, the same afflictions also befell the heroes of the Bible. Elijah and Moses and Jonah all grew so discouraged in the Lord's work they prayed for death. Jeremiah spent his whole life in the throes of depression. John the Baptist asked, "Are you really the Messiah or should we look of someone else?" David said, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?" Even the Apostle Paul said that he was once so weary and worried in ministry that he couldn't preach the Gospel though a great door had opened to him. Paul never had an easy time of ministry. He began his career by persecuting the wrong group. Then in the process of being converted, he lost his eyesight. After regaining his vision, he was almost killed in Damascus, escaping from the city like a fugitive. Coming to Jerusalem, he was treated by suspicion by the Christians and with hostility by the Jews. Returning to his hometown of Tarsus, he was rejected and beaten. He once testified, "I have worked harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Fire times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked..." He was deserted by his friends and slandered by his foes. Heretics pilfered his young churches and colleagues maligned his good name. He was unwell physically, suffering an incurable disease. And he admitted that in terms of native ability, he was a relatively sorry preacher. And yet... And yet his work has lasted 2000 years, we know him as the greatest missionary in Christian history, and our lives are daily impacted by his writings. What was the secret to his resiliency? It is found in 1 Corinthians 15. The chapter begins by Paul's reiterating his Gospel: Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. Notice those last seven words - on which you have taken your stand. What was this Gospel? Read on: For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scripture. Our primary commitment is not to ministry but to the risen Master and to his message. On this message, to use Paul's words, we have taken our stand. For some people today, it's a pretty wobbly stand. We live in an era in which people think of doctrine as dogma and adherence to theology as fundamentalist extremism. Recently the Wall Street Journal reported: Benjamin F. Chavis, an ordained Christian minister and former executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, announced he is converting to Islam and becoming a member of Rev. Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. "I still believe in Jesus Christ," (said Chavis). "There is a linkage between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and I believe that there should be a greater trialogue, not dialogue, but a trialogue between these three great revealed religions." Mr. Chavis said he expects his announcement to shock many of his Christian friends and fellow members of the clergy, but that he wants them to know that fundamentally, he hasn't changed. "If you pour water from one glass to another glass, the composition of the water is the same. I am who I am," Mr. Chavis said, "And there is but one God. The God of Judaism is the God of Christianity is the God of Islam. So if we all serve the same God why can't we all work together?" Compare that bit of logic with the attitude of the great reformer Martin Luther. Pope Leo demanded that Martin Luther retract his Reformation teachings. Luther responded by burning the papal orders, and the impasse forced Emperor Charles V to convene an Imperial Congress in Worms, a German city on the Rhine. Leo sent lawyers to discredit Luther, who determined to defend himself even at risk of life. "I will not flee, still less recant," Luther said. "May the Lord Jesus strengthen me." Luther left Wittenberg on the ten-day journey with three friends, riding in a rough two-wheel cart. Crowds gathered along the way, and Luther preached at every stop. But as he grew closer to Worms, suspense grew. His friends warned he would suffer the same fate as John Hus. "Though Hus was burned," Luther replied, "the truth was not burned, and Christ still lives... I shall go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as tiles on the roofs." Luther's arrival in Worms was heralded by city watchmen blowing horns, and thousands gathered. Stepping from his wagon, Luther whispered, "God will be with me." Shortly, he stood before Emperor Charles V and the congress. The tension was thick as fog, and Luther, appearing to lose his nerve, mumbled and seemed near collapse. But the next day, fortified by prayer, he thundered his defense of the sufficiency of Scripture. "I can not and will not recant!" he reportedly said. "Here I stand. God help me! Amen." The congress erupted in confusion and was abruptly adjourned. Luther's friends quickly spirited him to safety. Luther later said, "I was fearless, I was afraid of nothing; God can make one so desperately bold." Luther said, "Here I stand!" Paul said, "It is on this Gospel that we take our stand." Then he devoted the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 to one aspect of that Gospel - the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming resurrection of all those who trust in him, ending with these words in verses 51ff: Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed... Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, my time on earth is like a soldiers stint in the foxholes. It may be hard and horrid, but it is not a permanent assignment. The trench may even become a grave, but no matter. Furlough is approaching. A better life is coming. And it will come in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. What, then, is the great implication of all this? If we take our stand on a Gospel that includes such a resurrection, how should we then live? If I were to write the greatest chapter in the Bible on the resurrection, and I wanted to end the chapter by punching home a powerful application, I think I would have said:
But Paul makes a different application. To him the resurrection provides a powerful motivation for Christian service. And so he says: Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully tot he work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. The Lord here gives us three commandments and a promise. The first command sounds familiar: Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. This phrase occurs in the first and in the last verses of the chapter. In the first verse we are to stand firm in the Lord's message. In the last verse we're to stand firm in his ministry. The actual Greek word is edraios, meaning firmly settled. I live on a spot of land that has several fences, and of course, several fence posts. Some of the fenceposts were just stuck in the ground, but some of them were embedded in concrete. Which ones do you think are getting a little wobbly, and which ones are still standing solid as a rock? The idea behind this word is to be embedded in concrete. The second command is similar: Let nothing move you. Here we have a Greek word that appears nowhere else in the Bible. It is a very strong word that means unshakable, unbreakable, unquakable. The third command takes us a step further: Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Pour yourself into it. Don't grow weary in well doing. Don't grow slack. Don't get discouraged. This implies the ability to recreate ourselves day by day; it is the idea of resiliency. William Carey, the "father of modern missions," wanted to translate the Bible into as many Indian languages as possible. He established a large printshop in Serampore where translation work was continually being done. Carey spent hours each day translating Scripture, often while his insane wife ranted and raved in the next room. Carey was away from Serampore on March 11, 1832. His associate, William Ward, was working late. Suddenly Ward's throat tightened and he smelled smoke. He leaped up to discover clouds belching from the printing room. He screamed for help, and workers passed water from the nearby river until 2 a.m., but everything was destroyed. The missionary Joshua Marshman entered a Calcutta classroom where William Carey was teaching. "I can think of no easy way to break the news," he said. "The printshop burned to the ground last night." Carey was stunned. Gone were his massive polyglot dictionary, two grammar books, and whole versions of the Bible. Gone were sets of type for 14 eastern languages, 1200 reams of paper, 55,000 printed sheets, and 30 pages of his Bengal dictionary. Gone was his complete library. "The work of years - gone in a moment," he whispered. He took little time to mourn. "The loss is heavy," he wrote, "but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value. We are not discouraged, indeed the work is already begun again in every language. We are cast down but not in despair." When news of the fire reached England, it catapulted Carey to instant fame. Thousands of pounds were raised for the work, and volunteers offered to come help. The enterprise was rebuilt and enlarged. By 1832, complete Bibles, New Testaments, or separate books of Scripture had issued from the printing press in 44 languages and dialects. The secret of Carey's success is found in his resiliency. "There are grave difficulties on every hand," he once wrote, "and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward." Paul once said, "We often suffer, but we are never crushed. Even when we don't know what to do, we never give up. In times of trouble, God is with us, and when we are knocked down, we get up again." Why? Because of the powerful promise with which 1 Corinthians 15 ends. It is perhaps the Christian worker's most precious promise: For we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Recently I finished a book for Thomas Nelson Publications entitled On This Day, a volume of 365 stories from church history, all of them told on the day on which the story occurred. I'd like to share one to illustrate my point. Robert Moffat was a strong, healthy, young man who loved working outdoors. He was hired by James Smith, owner of Dukinfield Nurseries; but Smith had misgiving, for he knew two things: first, that Robert's good looks would appeal to his only daughter Mary; and second, that Robert wanted to be a missionary. It happened just as Smith feared. As Robert worked in the gardens, he met Mary and discovered that she, too, was a Christian with an interest in missions (having been educated in a Moravian school). Unknown to her parents, she had secretly prayed two years before that God would send her to Africa. An intense attachment formed quickly, but when the young couple announced to family members their plans to marry and leave England as missionaries to South Africa, the reaction was violent. Robert's parents seemed resigned, but the Smiths refused to give their consent. All pleading and imploring failed. At last, with his heart breaking, Robert decided to abandon hope of marriage and leave for the field alone. "From the clearest indications of his providence," he wrote his parents, "he bids me go out alone. It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." So on October 18, 1816, Robert Moffat sailed for South Africa, leaving his heart behind. He arrived on the field suffering deep loneliness. "I have many difficulties to encounter, being alone," he wrote his parents. Meanwhile in England, Mary, too, was miserable. Three long years passed, and she finally told Robert in a letter that she had given up all prospect of joining him. But her next letter a month later contained different news: "They both yesterday calmly resigned me into the hands of the Lord," she wrote, "declaring they durst no longer withhold me." Mary quickly packed her trunks, told her anguished parents goodbye with no expectation of ever seeing them again, and left for South Africa. There she and Robert were married before a handful of friends on December 27, 1819. And there they labored side-by-side for 53 years, becoming one of the greatest husband-wife teams in missionary history. But here's the rest of the story. A number of years before, a faithful Scottish minister had been approached by one of his deacons who said to him, "Something is very wrong with your ministry here. You preach every Sunday, but in the past year only one person has been added to the church and he was just a boy." The old man listened and his eyes grew moist. "God knows I have tried to do my duty," he said. "I can trust him for the results." "Yes, yes," said the deacon, "but by their fruits you shall know them." The old minister was nearly overcome with hurt and despair. In the course of a whole year, no growth, no visible results - except for one boy. But that boy was Robert Moffat. We are doing more good than we know. There are grave difficulties on every hand and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
|