We have now discovered that your pastor is always being watched and is in fact weak and now, because of this there is something else that is inevitable. You pastor is almost always wounded. This sounds over dramatic but it’s true. Those who watch our weakness also gossip about it and I don’t care who you are…that hurts. I will give a very personal example of the wounds pastors receive on a daily basis.

Have you ever had your cell phone in your pocket and accidentally called someone in your address book. There was this one guy in my church that had done this quite a few times over the course of several months but came to end very badly for me. One night while I was home with my wife enjoying a quiet evening my cell phone rang. When I answered I quickly discovered that this gentleman did not actually know that he had called me. I know I should have hung up but I didn’t (refer to previous post).

The conversation I heard tore my heart out. I had a great deal of love and respect for this particular individual up to this point and had given a lot of myself to him and his family which made it only worse. This person was having a conversation with another member of the church telling them what a bad pastor he thought I was. I won’t go into the details of the conversation but needless to say…I was wounded.

I have many more stories I could tell as I am sure every pastor does, it comes with the calling. The pastor cannot make everybody happy and therefore there will always be major criticisms against their intentions, motivations character, and even their devotion to Christ. Some wounds make us stronger while some wounds make us weaker but all wounds cause us to need and rely on Christ.