{"id":695946,"date":"2020-01-15T02:00:31","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=695946"},"modified":"2020-05-19T13:15:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T17:15:39","slug":"why-christian-leaders-struggle-with-dark-nights-of-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/why-christian-leaders-struggle-with-dark-nights-of-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Christian Leaders Struggle with \u201cDark Nights of the Soul\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chuck Lawless<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you read church history at all, you\u2019ll learn that men as faithful to God as Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon struggled with bouts of at least heaviness, if not depression. I\u2019m convinced more church leaders than we know face these battles. Here are some reasons we do, followed by a simple suggestion when we struggle:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Our calling is a calling of God.<\/b> We\u2019re blessed to have that calling, but we still answer to the Creator of eternity. That\u2019s a weighty reality that sometimes gets really heavy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. We work with life and death.<\/b> In fact, we work in the light of eternity, reminding people of life and death matters. Just that fact can pound on our shoulders.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. We live with our own sin.<\/b> No church leader I know wants to be hypocritical in front of church members, but all of us know our own sin issues. Our desire to be leaders of integrity\u00a0 increases the burden of our own sin.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Sometimes, few people respond to our leading.<\/b> Jesus warned us that many would not choose the right path, but His warning doesn\u2019t lessen the pain when few people respond positively to our ministry.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. We carry the weight of the burdens of others.<\/b> Yes, we can pray and turn them over to God \u2013 but our heart still hurts when others hurt.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Many of us have few real friends.<\/b> Sometimes we\u2019ve made that choice (wrongly, in my opinion), but it\u2019s still lonely when you bear ministry alone.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. We don\u2019t always use spiritual disciplines well.<\/b> For some, disciplines are sporadic at best. For others, we turn to them only as a Band-Aid to try to legalistically fix our issues. Neither takes us closer to the God who wants to heal us.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. We tend to be perfectionists.<\/b> I don\u2019t know many pastors who like to mess up. We want to do well, to please others as we serve God. <\/span>Any <\/span><\/i>failure brings pain.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. We haven\u2019t learned the power of 2 Corinthians 12:10. <\/b>We preach about strength in weakness, but we haven\u2019t learned how to live it.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. <\/b>We struggle with the dark night, and then beat ourselves up for being depressed. <\/b>\u201cNo strong believer should feel this way,\u201d we think \u2013 and the cycle continues. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you\u2019re struggling with this kind of anguish, I plead with you to talk with a brother or sister in Christ. You\u2019re not the only one facing this battle, but you won\u2019t likely win it if you battle alone. For all of us \u2013 let\u2019s say a prayer today for our church leaders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Chuck Lawless\u00a0 If you read church history at all, you\u2019ll learn that men as faithful to God as Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon struggled with bouts of at least heaviness, if not depression. I\u2019m convinced more church leaders than we know face these battles. Here are some reasons we do, followed by a simple…","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":695947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,177,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-lead","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Christian Leaders Struggle with \u201cDark Nights of the Soul\u201d - ThomRainer.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you read church history, you\u2019ll learn that men faithful to God as Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon struggled with bouts of heaviness, if not depresion.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/why-christian-leaders-struggle-with-dark-nights-of-the-soul\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Christian Leaders Struggle with \u201cDark Nights of the Soul\u201d - 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