Your marriage matters...

...much MORE than your ministry

This is a topic that has been written about in so many ways and still not exhausted.

I believe the reason why is that the devil is never exhausted and keeps employing diverse ways and wiles to attack marriages and uses ministry as a "weapon" more than we are willing to accept.

2 Corinthians 11:14b says 

"Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light!"*

Sometimes, he attacks our marriages using good things in ministry. These include: 

Wise counsel: Some pastors invest so much time in being available to provide wise counsel to church members and have no time for their families. If there is anything I know from personal experience, those pastors who have a good relationship with God are blessed with the ability to give wise counsel because they are connected to the Source of wisdom and the One Who knows all things. The challenge with letting this impact your marriage and family is someone in it may pray like David did in 2 Samuel 15:31**. Yikes!!

Events: It's amazing how many events some churches organize...it sometimes feels like there is an ongoing "Event Competition". At other times, it seems that events are organized to counter or flat out compete with other churches' events. At other times it seems like if one event is not deemed successful, another event is set up to make up for it - and then another and then another...I'm not sure what to make of it.

With so many events being planned and executed, some pastors may not have or take the time to do same for themselves and their families. I wonder what the impact would be if some pastors also passionately plan and execute events for just their spouse /family?

Availability: Beyond counselling for hours unend, midnight calls must be taken as ‘it may be a life-threatening case’. Some pastors are therefore on call 24-hours, 7-days a week, all year round. Actually, they are not on-call; they put themselves on call 24-7 - and we wonder why they burnout and their spouse and family also burn-out and/or feel left out? 

Psalm 121:2-4 is very clear and true too: He will not let you fall; your protector is always awake. The protector of Israel never dozes or sleeps.*
So pastors can go to sleep vs. being available 24-7.

Prayer: Some pastors spend an inordinate amount of time praying powerfully for the ministry and members but have no family-related prayer points unless there is a crisis. They may so so busy and "fulfilled" sorting out other people's homes and matters to tend to theirs. Weeds show up and stay longer in untended gardens.

In fact, this is tied to their presence – or lack thereof. 
Sometimes they are too busy with ministry to be physically present at home or they are physically at home, but not fully present i.e. not listening to his family or being part of family discussions and activities, absent mindedness, incessant forgetfulness about or deferral of family matters vis-à-vis ministry matters.

Open door policy: This has extended to "open home" policy such that there are no boundaries/privacy for the pastor's family. Figuratively and sometimes literally, members/ministry are in the driver’s seat while his family is in the back seat – if or when they are in the car.

It is sad to see a family that doesn't want to go home because they don't see it as a haven - rather it feels like a "hotel" because people come and go as they choose. 

Now I'm not saying that a pastor's family should not be hospitable. Far from it! All I'm saying is that there should be clear boundaries - which are respected by all.

No doesn’t exist: Some consider it sacrilegious to say “NO” – with excuses such as: “It may offend the church member(s)”, “It may imply that pastor is not effective/responsive”. It is sad when this happens especially when it means say “No” to family to say “Yes” to church members and/or ministry.

For me, the sign of a true and good leader (and pastors are to be leaders) is the ability to say "No" without feeling guilty. And when we realize that for every "Yes" we are saying "No" to something and vice versa, we will use our "Nos" more effectively.

In writing this, I imagined what people will think about my own husband and smiled because those who know him know that this is most definitely not about him - not by a long shot. Although I cannot say I haven't seen some of these pop up now and again in our lives.😊

I'd like to celebrate and say "thank you" to my dear friend who is also a Mrs Pastor for her contributions to this piece. There's no way I could have put this together all by myself.

References:

* Good News Translation
** 2 Samuel 15:31 - David was told, “Ahithophel [your counselor] is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “O Lord, I pray You, turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.” (AMP)