One of the worst dangers facing church planters is common to anyone heavily involved in ministry: It’s easy to see God’s work up-close and, over time, lose your sense of wonder. We get familiar with holy things. Perhaps overly familiar.

Chuck Swindoll has said, “The scary thing about ministry is that you can learn to do it.” And so we begin to take God’s work for granted – or worse, we lose a sense of holy dependence on His grace.

Preachers talk about this challenge. I just wrapped up an interim pastor role where I preached every week the past seven months. I love to preach. What an honor to spend time in God’s Word, in study, in preparation and then deliver a timely message for God’s people! But those of us who preach or teach on a regular basis know the temptation of becoming overly familiar with the Word, of losing sight of its power for us personally.

In an article a few years ago, Clint Clifton confessed: “My devotional life was swallowed by my teaching ministry. The pace of public teaching meant I was in the Word of God more, but applying it to myself less. Prior to ‘professional Christianity,’ my devotional life was applied directly to my life, my sin, my struggles and my joy. Suddenly, when I became a professional, the words of the Bible were for those I led.”

Familiarity is the enemy of wonder. We start out with excitement and joy at walking with Christ but somehow, over the years, we become spiritual zombies, still alive on the outside but dead on the inside. A selfish sense of entitlement replaces a holy sense of expectation.

Fighting Spiritual Covid

The adventure of life is a fight for astonishment, a determination to resist growing bored in a world of wonders. Perhaps that’s why those who live near the quiet glory of the mountains go to the beach for vacation, and vice versa. We change the scenery so we can see the scene. We leave home so that, for even the briefest of moments, on our return we see its glory anew.

The Christian life begins with spiritual astonishment at the glory of the gospel and the goodness and beauty of Christian truth, the wide-eyed surprise of the infant brought into a new world of grace. But over time, especially for those of us in paid Christian ministry, our eyes grow heavy and our tastebuds dim. We find ourselves with a case of Spiritual Covid. We’re fatigued and grumpy and, even worse, we can’t taste anything anymore. We eat to survive, not because the food has any taste.

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