The Hardest Part

The hardest part of pastoring is loving people. I don't mean to say that it's hard to love people. I think that's like saying, "It's hard to lift 10 tonne rocks." It's kinda true, but pointless. The only way to lift a 10 tonne rock is by an outside force. The only way to love people is similar--our capacity for love only comes from God (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly). What makes loving people the hardest part, then? The flip side of love.

A few weeks ago I was looking over the people in my church as we were in worship and God opened my eyes to the love he gave me for them. I know that love is not within my own capacity, so it must have been him. That moment is a nice moment. The following moments one has in care, sermon prep, lunch, listening, etc. are awful. All of the sudden, you are not your own any more. You are somehow joined to the other person and a participant in their suffering because of God's "gift of love." That's the hardest part. You are no longer detached; you are uncontrollably attached and (as they say back home) "done fer." That's the hardest part.

In the moments that follow the empathy you see the true hypocrisy of speaking ill of someone. Just as love thrusts you into their story, feeling the broken and hurting heart they may not even realize they have, ill speech from your own mouth cuts back against you as you are now part of the one you have spoken ill of. In condemning another, you have, quite literally, condemned yourself. And God makes it so. That's the hardest part.