It finally happened. I had read the case studies and listened to the podcasts about the alarming rate of pastoral burnout which a global pandemic exacerbated.
Burnout was not some unknown reality to my soul. I was simply under the impression that it could never happen to me.
My arrogance stemmed from the fact that I’m a blooming millennial which automatically renders me immune to all kinds of trials and anguish in a fallen world. How wrong was I, and how patient and merciful was God.
After barely eighteen months into a new ministry, the wheels came off plunging me in a canyon of turmoil unlike anything I’ve endured before. Looking back at the whole experience, my frailty became a fresh opportunity for the Lord to magnify his grace and reaffirm his internal call in a weakling like me (1 Cor. 1:27; 2 Cor. 12:9-10).
Here are three lessons I had to relearn while standing on the brink of burnout. My hope in sharing this is to encourage fellow pastors who may be going through similar distress to continue serving Christ and his church and run well until the end.
1. The Lord is near
At the lowest point of my life as a Christian, I was tempted to believe the lie that God had abandoned me for good. I could recite the answer to Question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism with great candor but failed to see the practical relevance of the gospel. I believed that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.
I was preaching a sovereign God from the pulpit, a God “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11), yet lived like a deist who assumed God was largely aloof and M.I.A. in my trials.
After barely eighteen months into a new ministry, the wheels came off plunging me in a canyon of turmoil unlike anything I’ve endured before.
My prayer life was becoming a tedious exercise until I began meditating on five short words immediately preceding Paul’s familiar encouragement to prayer in his letter to the Philippians: “the Lord is at hand” (Phil. 4:5b).
There’s a case to be made here that Paul isn’t just speaking about the certain return of Christ but also has in mind the immanence of Christ. Or as Dennis E. Johnson writes “Paul may intend us to understand “the Lord is at hand” as an assurance of Christ’s nearness to us even now through his indwelling Holy Spirit… bringing aid in our sufferings”.[1] I was not walking alone in the trenches of pastoral ministry!
My path was not only ordained but was also sustained by Jesus who through his Spirit has been pleased to take up permanent residence in me, promising to be ever-present and oh so close to His people.
What marvelous assurance in the face of discouragement and cynicism! In Christ, I am now armed to fight against my sin with an always potent remedy called prayer (Phil. 4:6).
2. ‘Identity Crisis’
Scott Thomas says that “something is always forming our leadership. It may be success, control, approval, comfort, security, or something else.”[2]
It didn’t take long for the Lord to expose my sinful proclivity to be a people pleaser. I was pastoring for recognition and admiration from my flock. How ironic that my savior complex was eclipsing my glorious Savior—the One who has entrusted me with the solemn privilege to shepherd his bride.
It turns out that aspiring to be praised by men can be exhausting and a real killjoy in ministry.
God allowed me to reach a tipping point to help me realize my identity cannot be found outside of Christ (John 15:5). More than anything else, what I needed most—as a Christian first and a pastor second—was to nurture and appropriate my union with Christ.
It turns out that aspiring to be praised by men can be exhausting and a real killjoy in ministry.
The despair I faced was marked by restlessness and tears, but in God’s kind providence, it became his sanctifying instrument to remind me that the noble task of overseeing God’s people is nothing less than the outgrowth of my identity with Jesus in his death and resurrection. Christ died for me. I no longer live (and pastor) for myself but for him who for my sake died and was raised (2 Cor. 5:15).
In the shifting sands of pastoral ministry, there is nothing more hopeful than enjoying a deeper relationship with Jesus—the kind of fellowship that is not subject to volatility and change. Or to borrow from Elisabeth Elliot, “The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”[3]
3. A Call to Suffer Well
Laboring as a pastor is not always pretty: loneliness, exhaustion, anxiety, and feelings of insignificance are all too common in the nitty-gritty of caring for eternal souls. In order to bounce back from burnout, I had to recalibrate my expectations according to the Scriptures.
As much as my flesh wants to push back against this, suffering is not inevitable for the believer; rather it is to be received as a gift by God to strengthen my joy in Christ (Phil. 1:29).
While there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ playbook on how to endure suffering in ministry, God has given us a sufficient blueprint in his word. These days I often find myself returning to Paul’s familiar words of encouragement in 2 Corinthians 4— words that brim with ‘paradoxical logic’.[4] God sees it fit to use suffering for the sake of the gospel as training ground leading to a perfect story ending for his people: “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17b). This is a Christ-exalting paradigm that puts every hardship we face in ministry in its proper perspective.
So while I cannot presume God’s will for the next chapter of my ministry, I can confidently rest in the fact that suffering will not diminish Christ’s commitment to complete His great work of salvation in me.
There are no shortcuts: the path to faithful endurance in ministry is the way of the cross. Thank God He uses my sufferings as part of His grace to purge remaining sin, conforming me increasingly to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28-29), as he leads me safely to my eternal home!
The pressures of shepherding Christ’s church are numerous and often draining. The best form of self-care happens when we entrust our ministry daily into God’s merciful hands.
He has purchased you at the cost of his Son’s blood and made you a trophy of his grace. So stay the course as you keep your gaze on Jesus and strive with all the energy he powerfully works within you (Col. 1:29).
[1] Dennis E. Johnson, Philippians, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2013), 268.
[2] Scott Thomas, The Gospel Shaped Leader: Leaning on Jesus to Shepherd His People, (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2021), 3.
[3] Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart (Ann Arbor: Servant Publications, 1995), 20.
[4] I’m borrowing this expression from The ESV Gospel Transformation Bible study notes on 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (p.1559).
