The apostle Paul was physically and emotionally exhausted. Fear rumbled in his soul, conflict awaited him. He had no rest. Rather than hide this fact, the apostle put it: as pastors, the idea of giving voice to the hurricane that hits the closed windows of our souls seems dangerous, but God has a cure in mind.
Notice how Paul describes his experience for the Corinthian congregation: “Because when we arrived in Macedonia, we had no relief; on the contrary, in all of us we were troubled: fighting outside, fears inside?(2 Corinthians 7. 5).
- Paul was a minister.
- But he was also a human being who needed comfort; the kind of comfort that moths and rust cannot destroy.
- The kind of comfort that comes to the intimate.
- Have you ever experienced this kind of profound need of the soul?You’re in good company.
- Our predecessor tells us how God comforted him in the ministry.
“But God, who comforts the massacred, comforted us with the coming of Titus; and not only with his arrival, but also for the comfort he received from you” (2 Corinthians 7:6-7).
God comforted Paul, not because of the lack of stress, but because of a friend’s presence in the ministry, not by the absence of fear, but by the shared testimony in a common place on any other day. You?
God comforted Paul, not because of the lack of stress, but because of the presence of a friend in the ministry.
Many of us pastors stay away from friendship for good reason
First, we know the pain of the members of the congregation who helped us simply use ourselves or place ourselves on a pedestal from which, in their eyes, we fell, we provide a product or a good feeling. Did they have any knowledge? And they liked the power of that. But knowing and staying with us in our weakness and sin, as well as in our gifts and success, was not their goal. In the book The Pilgrim, when a Christian fell into the swamp of discouragement, his friend called?Wavering? He left it, there so he could defend himself. Many of us in the department are experiencing this pain. We say with King David:
In fact, it is not an enemy that confronts me;
If that were the case, I would bear it;
nor is he the one who hates me and excels at me,
because I would hide from him;
But it’s you, my man
my partner and my close friend.
Together we walk, together we have fun
and we went with the crowd to the house of God
(Psalm 55. 12-14)
Secondly, trying to be friends with other ministers also did not give us peace of mind: competition, rivalry, quarrel, envy, cautious souls. Sometimes risking friendship with other ministers is like entering a minefield. They feel that way about us, too. We walk among our fellow ministers as if we were driving at night in a dangerous part of the city. We close our windows and lock our doors. Therefore, at some point, finding communion among fellow pastors has become an unreliable path for those of us who walk in the ministry of the gospel.
The problem, of course, is that the fact that we have no friends in the ministry poses a real danger and deprives us of the inner strength that God wants to give us, as Paul teaches us through Titus’ visit. What they did seemed insignificant and small compared to the greatness and strength of the pain and conflict Paul faced. They shared time, place and common presence. Nothing spectacular or unusual has happened here. And yet, sharing stories, eating together, talking, laughing, praying, these two pastors were endowed with the resources of friendship. They found comfort. They opened the curtains, sat on chairs and let the sun shine for a moment. They spoke humanly of everything in their hearts and the pain in their bodies. Paul learned in this kind of moment of grace what he now shares with us.
The communion of the soul with a minister friend is how God provides deep comfort in the pains of ministry.
It certainly has a biblical meaning. God has long established that “two are better than one” (Ecclesiastes 4. 9-12). Jesus sent his ministers: “Two by two? (Mark 6. 7, Luke 10. 1).
Unsurprisingly, in the old story titled The Pilgrim, Christian finally finds among the pains of lost friendship and false friends, a true companion with?True?And hope?. Bunyan draws attention to this need for companionship as a gift from God:
When the saints are sleepy, come here
And listen to these pilgrims speak.
Yes, and learn from them this way.
How to keep your eyes open
The communion of the saints, well directed,
It keeps them on alert, despite the effort of hell.
“Come here and listen to these pilgrims talk. ” So we don’t give up and end well, we need colleagues to wander around with.