Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Monday, April 15, 2024
The ultimate encouragement to help ministers press through the discouragements they experience when they face trials and challenges is that we were created, redeemed and called into ministry in order to bring glory to Christ. The cry of the ministers heart must ever be, “He must increase, I must decrease.” The ministries to which we have been called by God are not for our own glory. So often the discouragements that ministers feel are on account of a wrong view of ministry.

It is the common lot of those God has called into gospel ministry to become discouraged on account of the challenges and trials that come from serving as a pastor. I can almost always sense when a brother is weighed down by the pressures, demands, and discouragements that come with serving as a pastor of a congregation, because I have known them throughout my own pastoral service. The apostle Paul intimated the challenges that pastors face in the church when he added to the external opposition he experienced from the unbelieving world the care that he had for the church. He wrote, “apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). So what are ministers to do when they feel overwhelmed by the discouragements of ministry? Here are a seven important biblical truths to keep in mind: 

Remember your need to be sanctified. Just as marriage helps us recognize our need for sanctification in areas that we might not otherwise have seen, so too does pastoral ministry. When the hardships and trials come, we must remember that we need to be sanctified in areas of our lives that we might not have otherwise seen were the trials and challenges not there. For instance, pastors might not realize sinful anger that remains in their hearts until some injustice takes place in the church and that anger begins to well up within. Pastors may not recognize their need to listen better or communicate better until some issue arises that helps them see their own sinful deficiencies. God may have placed this trial or challenge in your ministry to sanctify you as a pastor.
Remember your need to grow in wisdom. Just as we need sanctification, pastors need wisdom. A faithful pastor will want to grow as a wise shepherd of the flock. Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom above everything else because he wanted to pastor God’s people with great skill (1 Kings 3:6-9). I have, many times, sought out older and wiser men for counsel as I face trials and challenges in ministry; and, I hope that, to some degree, I am growing in wisdom as I press through one challenge and head into another. The experience gleaned from both successes and failures often brings with it a greater measure of wisdom. We learn this from the book of Ecclesiastes. There were things that Solomon learned from the experiences of life. Often the trials and challenges of ministry serve as the vehicle by which God grows ministers in wisdom.
Remember your insufficiency for ministry. The Apostle Paul repeatedly told the members of the church in Corinth that ministers are insufficient, in and of themselves, for ministry (2 Cor. 2:16; 3:5: 12:9). This was necessary because there were certain “super apostles” who cast aspersions on the Apostle Paul were boasting as if they were sufficient. When trials and challenges come, ministers feel their own insufficiency. In the midst of challenges with congregants, ministers remember that they cannot change the hearts of the people to whom God has sent them to shepherd. In many cases, the only course of action in a particular trial is go to the throne of grace and plead with the Lord to bring whatever we are facing to a felicitous end.

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The Lamb that was slain is also the lion who has conquered (Rev. 5:5–6). Christ’s death on the cross is at the same time his victory over death, evil and sin. Thus, we know that even through suffering and death, God’s children one day will partake in that glorious victory of our Lord over everyone who worships the beast.

On February 24, at 5:00 AM I woke up in my Kyiv apartment. “What were those sounds? Lord, I hope it’s not missiles. Please Lord, let it be something else.”  I jumped out of bed, opened a window and listened. A few minutes of silence calmed me down a bit. Maybe I had just imagined it? I picked up my phone to read the messages. My colleague Valeriy from Odessa wrote: “I hear the launch of missiles from the sea. I may be wrong, but that’s what it sounds like.”  One minute later at 05:12, the silence was broken by a series of sounds that shook the building. I wrote him back, “I hear explosions here in Kyiv. I hope I am wrong, but my building is shaking.” A few more explosions, this time much louder. There was no longer any doubt Russia had begun a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
I tried to call my wife, praying that she and the kids were fine. By God’s providence and mercy, just a week before I had taken my family to Uzhgorod in the west of Ukraine because of the possibility of escalation. I did not know if her city was also under attack. Thankfully, she did not even know what was happening. My biggest desire at that moment was to see my family’s faces and hug them once again. I could only pray that it would happen. Fear, confusion, pain, and anger invaded my heart and I have been fighting against them ever since.
Should I try to find the closest bomb shelter, or is it better to stay in the building? I knew that it was highly unlikely that any nearby bomb shelter was open and ready to accept people now. I knew that ninety-five percent of the population of Kyiv had no idea what was going on and were not prepared. I wasn’t ready either. Is it even possible to prepare yourself for something like this? After another series of loud thumps, I decided to go to the closest metro station to shelter underground.
As I walked outside, I met another man who looked very confused. I asked him if he had a family and if he could give me a ride to the closest metro station. “What is going on?” he asked. I answered, “The Russians are shelling Kyiv.” He could not believe it, how could our “older brother” act so treacherously towards us? Dmytro (as I learned later) needed a few more minutes to process the information and figure out what to do next. Finally, we jumped in the car to find a better place to hide.
The Beginning Of The War?
Even though US intelligence had warned about the possibility of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it still came as a surprise to many people in the world, including Russians and Ukrainians. No wonder Dmytro was not ready to hear my answer. How could I even be so sure? This was not the first time I heard the “knocking” of Russkiy mir on my door.1 Back in 2014, Putin’s Russia visited my hometown, Donetsk, bringing its bombs and bullets and shells.  It forced me, my pregnant wife, and children to flee. I was familiar with its real face and recognized its footsteps.
The war did not start on February 24, 2022.  It started 8 years earlier when Russia annexed Crimea and occupied two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. In the spring of 2014, Donetsk was flooded with foreigners who spoke with a distinctly Russian accent. These people organized protests against the Ukrainian government. The city was overwhelmed with waves of violence. They burned buildings and beat peaceful, Ukrainian demonstrators. Not long after this, they brought in stockpiles of weapons and so the war came to Donetsk.
The Russians were filled with hatred, but they especially hated Protestant believers. Russkiy mir is proudly Russian Orthodox. It wears a cassock, not a collar. Protestant pastors were beaten in Donetsk and its regions; some were tortured to death. While they were able, many evangelical believers gathered for prayer meetings by the Kalmius river. While pro-Russian protestors attacked and threatened us, evangelical Christians prayed for peace in Ukraine.
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Written by Samuel G. Parkison |
Thursday, April 6, 2023
As a rule of thumb, if you are not sure if a conversation is verging into gossip, err on the side of caution and assume it is, and then be the awkward person and confess and steer the conversation away. Turn the lights on. Pump the breaks. “I’m sorry for any way I’ve fed into this, but it seems like our conversation is verging into gossip and I think we should stop talking about it.”

It is no secret that Ecclesiastes occupies a place in the biblical genre group we call wisdom literature. So, in some sense, we know what to do with this book. We go to it in order to find wisdom. But this does not mean that its instructions are straightforward. Often, it takes wisdom to get the wisdom contained in Ecclesiastes.
One of my favorite chapters in this book (and one which encapsulates this enigmatic nature of its wisdom) is chapter 10. In it we see that one of the key distinctions between worldly wisdom and heavenly wisdom comes down to this central concept: pride vs. humility. This distinction is hinted at all throughout the Proverbs when we learn how the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The one who fears the Lord does not fear others. The one who worships the Lord does not worship the praise of others, the strength of arms, or the prestige of wisdom, wealth, and pleasure. The one who fears the Lord isn’t frantically acting out of a reactionary and prideful sense of self-advancement or self-protection. The one who fears the Lord is content with being forgotten by man, so long as he is remembered by God. The path out of folly and into wisdom, then, is a true and God-given humility. Solomon illustrates this in Ecclesiastes both positively, and negatively. That is, not only does he commend humble wisdom, he also calls attention to the tragedy of prideful folly.
The Self-Destruction of Foolish Actions
“He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall. He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them. If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed. If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer” (Ecclesiastes 10:8-11)
Here, Solomon paints a vivid picture of the self-destructive nature of folly. Picture the stubborn and prideful person who despises instruction and recklessly acts to his own hurt. This is the person who digs a pit carelessly, for someone else, and then falls into it himself (a favorite illustration for Solomon). This is the guy doing demolition on a snake-infested wall heedless of the words of caution given by the owner. This is the guy who recklessly quarries stones and splits logs without using the proper protection or protocol. This is the guy who is working away with all his might, trying to cut down a tree with a dull axe, unwilling to heed the counsel of another who instructs him to sharpen the blade first. He can’t be bothered with the counsel of others because he is so pridefully self-assured that he knows what he’s doing.
We can certainly think of other examples. One classic example used to be the husband who refused to ask for directions. And while GPS and smartphones have rendered this particular illustration irrelevant, the problem of folly is not resolved by technology. How many relational bridges have been burned because men and women are too pridefully stubborn to humble themselves and apologize? Think of the husband who refuses to call the electrician because he’s so confident he can fix the problem himself. Think of the wife who stubbornly refuses to heed the counsel of her husband on how to discipline the kids because she is so confident she knows what’s right. Think of the child who refuses to let his mom show him how to tie his shoe, tries to do it himself, and trips a few minutes later. The thing we really need to recognize here is that this kind of stubborn pride is not a personality quirk. It is folly.
And this is as good a place as any to remind my fellow parents of this central responsibility: we are to discipline and disciple the folly out of our children. They are born fools, and we are called to make them wise. The two-year-old’s inability to say “sorry” (or its equivalent) and practice self-control may not seem so bad right now, but when he’s a thirty-two-year-old, it can wreck a home and destroy lives.
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