Pastors: Enjoy Your Work

I returned to work this week after a short vacation in Florida. To be honest, I was a bit bummed on Tuesday morning: tired, longing to be back on vacation, and dragging myself through the day.

At one point in my study I found myself enjoying the task of studying Scripture. It hit me: I get paid to do what I love. Who gets paid to study Scripture and to teach it to others, seeing the Word change lives through God’s power? I do. I don’t always remember it, but it is a huge privilege to be a pastor. I think we’re supposed to find joy in the work, even in the middle of all of the challenges.

I love this quote from Philip Brooks:

I think, again, that it is essential to the preacher’s success that he should thoroughly enjoy his work. I mean in the actual doing of it, and not only in its idea. No man to whom the details of his task are repulsive can do his task well constantly, however full he may be of its spirit. He may make one bold dash at it and carry it over all his disgusts, but he cannot work on at it year after year, day after day. Therefore, count it not merely a perfectly legitimate pleasure, count it an essential element of your power, if you can feel a simple delight in what you have to do as a minister, in the fervor of writing, in the glow of speaking, in standing before men and moving them, in contact with the young. The more thoroughly you enjoy it, the better you will do it all.