One hundred eighty-six years ago, a pastor was removed from his flock for a time due to declining health issues. His name was Robert Murray McCheyne. He was a Scottish pastor in the Scottish Covenanter’s tradition. A gifted and devoted expositor, McCheyne loved his church family at St. Peter’s and committed himself to writing a series of pastoral letters to encourage his congregation there while he was away convalescing.
Those letters have all been preserved and each is filled with a wisdom and example that spans the intervening years and is perhaps, even more relevant for our time than perhaps it was in his. In one section of the letter he takes up the topic of what it might mean for both the congregation and himself, that God was taking him away for a time.
“Ministers are God’s tools for building up the gospel temple. Now you know well that every wise workman takes his tools away from the work from time to time, that they may be ground and sharpened; so does the only-wise Jehovah take His ministers oftentimes away into darkness and loneliness and trouble, that He may sharpen and prepare them for harder work in His service. Pray that it may be so with your pastor.”
McCheyne’s words are not Scripture but if I could exegete them . . .
His counsel:
- All believers, including pastors, need a break from their work.
- All believers, including pastors, need a time of “sharpening” to maximize our effectiveness.
- “Grounding and sharpening” can be hard and time consuming work.
- Sometimes, “darkness and loneliness and trouble” are the grinding tools that God uses, even in pastors lives, to fit them for better and harder work in the future.
Pray for the pastors that we are working to encourage. Many of them are in a time of “darkness and loneliness and trouble” that God means for their good but that doesn’t mean it is comfortable or pleasant. They need McCheyne’s medicine but it doesn’t taste good at the moment. Pray that we would be effective in encouraging them and help to bring both healing and direction for their tired and weary hearts.
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