Dear pastor or ministry leader,

For two days I have been praying for you, my heart breaking for you. I want you to know that I see you and feel what you are going through. Now is a very challenging time to lead and love. I am praying for your strength.

It is easy to stand strong when you know your convictions around the gospel, how the church should run, or your personal boundaries. It is much harder to lead when you don’t know the right answer and 100 voices you respect are pulling in 101 different directions. It is hard to stand when you don’t know what ground to stand on.

I have been in times like this too, leading in times where everyone questioned every decision, including myself. In those moments I could not have told you what was wisdom and what was the enemy. I have also been betrayed and slandered by those I loved, served, poured into, and sacrificed for. Many times I have given much to those who gave little back.

Here is how I describe it in my upcoming book, [Extra] Ordinary Discipleship: Disciple-making for anyone:

“Struggle with, and on behalf of others, is part of the Kingdom and part of being identified with Christ. As Jesus says in Luke 9:23, in order to be a disciple, we must take up our cross and follow him. Jesus himself modeled this when he took up his cross and he carried it to Golgotha. Discipleship is about laying down our agenda and picking up Gods, laying down the story we would write for ourselves and picking up his story for us. You can get out of suffering (for a little bit anyway), and avoid the hard thing God is asking you to do, but in doing so you are effectively opting out of being a disciple.   

If we love people, our hearts will get hurt. If we choose to protect ourselves from potential hurt, then it can never really be love. I have chosen to love, lay down my life, and occasionally experience betrayal. But I have determined never to regret the love that I give. I don’t regret a single piece of my heart that I have given away. Not that it is ever whole again. It never will be. But that’s okay—it doesn’t have to be! Each part that is missing is a part I gave away in love. The spaces where I have given but not been given to in return remain scarred. But if I hold my heart before the throne of God and allow his love to wash over it, then he heals it. And I hear scars are cool in heaven anyway. While I don’t have scars on my hands, feet, or side like Jesus, I have evidence of loving well and taking up my cross as a disciple and a disciple-maker.”

God has taught me that the opposite of the Kingdom is not fear, but selfishness, which the Bible also calls rebellion.

Today, I am praying for you. I want to encourage you to dig deep. Spend more time in Scripture than in social media. Find the deeper convictions that will help you identify the ground on which to stand. Spend time in His presence to find the Kingdom-centered “why” for your decisions.

One of the things I have learned through my struggles as a disciple who also leads is that we (me included) want to do anything except pick up our cross daily and follow. But the Kingdom of God is not a self-help Kingdom, it is not a kingdom of “your best life now.” It is a Kingdom of picking up your cross and laying down your life for another, especially those who betray you. 

God has taught me that the opposite of the Kingdom is not fear, but selfishness, which the Bible also calls rebellion. Rebellion and the Kingdom of God cannot co-exist. God continues to show where rebellion lives in me and surfaces in each place I refuse to sacrifice or submit to the way of love.

In choosing the Kingdom, I choose the pain of love. At the end of the Lord of the Rings, Frodo reflects that time does not heal all wounds. I have found this to be true, but instead of choosing to be wounded, I learned to let things be incompletely healed. Besides, if the people I pour into can’t affect me, then I don’t truly love them. Love is strong enough to co-exist with and eventually overshadow the pain. I choose to feel my life rather than be numb to it. We sit in the pain and tension of things without trying to control and without trying to shrink back. We sit there because that is where the miracle of transformation lives.

Today I pray for your courage, for the strength of your soul that you may endure what is before you. May the Lord give you the convictions of the Kingdom of God on which to stand, the words to share the Kingdom, and the love of God that overcomes the darkness.

My heart is with you.