Your pastors will be consistently “afflicted,” as 2 Corinthians 4:8 declares. Their personal life will be scrutinized. Their labor will be relentless. Their family will be tested. Their freedoms in Christ will be limited. Their decisions will be questioned. If it goes well all the glory to God. Yet if it doesn’t, it is the pastor’s fault. As Paul said, they will be afflicted in “every way.” Changing churches or careers will seem like the greener pasture. Yet pastors must remember that God is sovereign and because He is in control, they are not, as the verse say, “crushed.” As one pastor said, “Squeezed, but not squashed.”
Randy Smith