Too often, pastors evaluate success by applause, size, and immediate outward results. After all, these are the measures often thrust upon pastors by their congregants. There is a frequent accusation in a pastor’s conscience that preaching the gospel is not enough.

As I was busy rushing from one place to another, I noticed a man looking at me with a big smile on his face. He had just stepped out of a work van and was doing some sort job nearby. To be honest, I had a lot on my plate to get done that day, and was determined not to be slowed down. The next thing I knew, the man who had been grinning at me was now standing right in front of me.

I do not remember what I was thinking at that moment but, sadly, it was probably something like, “Oh great.”

He said, “You don’t remember me. I went to your church 14 years ago when you first arrived in Lexington. You preached the gospel every week, and so did the small group leaders. To be honest, I did not want to hear it and stop attending. I thought I wanted something more practical that would help with my daily life. I found what I was looking for, I was getting my ears tickled, but I could never shake the gospel you preached and 4-years-ago I trusted Christ, and I am now in a great gospel-preaching church where I now live. I just wanted you to know. Thank you! Don’t ever stop!”

I am not usually one to cry, but as he walked off, I teared up thinking about the sheer goodness of God and the incredible power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To think, in my self-preoccupation, I would have preferred to avoid that conversation that day. After all, I thought that had important stuff to get done. Thankfully, God’s sweet providence does not acquiesce to my self-referential ordering of what is important: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Prov 16:9).

My encounter with that man woke me up and reordered my thinking and priorities. I was not depressed or discouraged on that day but I was sinfully distracted. The core activities of pastoring have a relentlessness about them–prayer, study, preparation, planning, pastoral care, visiting, discipling, preaching, counseling–are never-ending. There is never a finished project. There is always more to be done. No pastor worth his salt thinks he ever does enough in any of these areas so consistently possesses a nagging feeling of inadequacy. Most pastors cry out with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor 2:16). On our better days, we answer that cry like Paul does as well, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor 3:5).

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