If you are a preacher like me, you know what is expected of you every Sunday of the week: stand behind the pulpit with the word of God and preach. And as if that wasn’t enough, you must also deliver a word on Wednesdays and some days in between. Not that it is wrong. After all, that’s your job, you call from God. What is not right is, people begin to assume you do not tired, you do not run out of things to say, and you do not get burned out.
Gospel ministers are just like everyone, that’s a matter of fact. We work and we get tired. We need rest. Our body breaks down, just like yours. It gets sick, it acquires diseases. And if a congregation truly loves their pastor, they should give him time to recuperate, to relax, and just soak in sermons from other ministers from time to time.
A few months into 2025, I decided to have a sabbatical for myself for a month. I asked the church to give me a month’s leave from the pulpit and let our roster of ministers preach for me. It happened in July, and for the first time in all my years of ministering from the pulpit, I was at the pew for four Sundays straight. And I loved it!
The real reason behind this decision was my brush with death through minor heart attack. It happened in December of 2024. Although I was able to preach in a week – and that is nothing less than a miracle! – I knew that I needed to improve on my routine if I wanted to live a few more years longer. At 53 years old, I know my body is past its peak and is now on its downward spiral. It is not strong as before, and the joints are now a little bit harder to bend than before.
To be sure, it is not the preaching that got my body sick. It was the combination of it all – wrong diet, lack of sleep and rest, dried sweat on my back, lack of exercise, etc. You see, when you are young, these things don’t bother you a bit. It’s when you are old that you realize you should have done better.
Now, back on my sabbatical. The truth is I did not relax the whole month of July. I traveled with my wife and with other ministers. I did some lectures on preaching. I caught up with my daily reading. And more importantly, I planned. I looked ahead of my life and considdered my next steps in the ministry.
A minister’s work is never finished. But working non-stop will quickly wear down the body. Let’s have some rest from time to time. And when we do, let’s make sure we get back stronger and better servants of God and His people.
