God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Satan tempts (to make us weaker), but God’s goal is to test (to make us stronger) and oftentimes we are tested by God permitting Satan to tempt us. In the Bible (Luke 4) we see Jesus being tested by God as He is led by God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Preaching usually represents one-way communication. When pastors are taught how to preach but do not learn other forms of communication, they are severely handicapped. When they express stress and tension in the congregation, they revert to the form of communication they know best, and that is preaching. Not listening, mind you, but preaching. We [as pastors] have learned well how to speak our opinions, but we have not learned how to hear or respond equally well to the opinions and positions of others. Often, once we stake out a position within a conflict scenario, we are immovable.
