Pastor, Don’t Quit

Early this summer my family and I took a trip to the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. We spent a whole week sitting and playing with our kids on the beach. It was a great, much-needed vacation… except for one part. My wife and I signed up for paddleboard lessons. Paddleboards are like big surfboards that you stand on and move with a large paddle. We thought it would be fun to learn. When you see people doing it, they look so cool and relaxed while paddling around the island.

I quickly learned that paddleboarding is not as easy as it looks. If you don’t stay balanced, the board will quickly flip and dump you in the water. I fell a lot. Even worse, my wife was much better than me. Apparently, her early years as a dancer taught her with a sense of balance that my clumsy self never acquired.

I was exhausted. The instructor was leading us a mile down the beach to a beautiful reef. He and my wife were way ahead of me because I kept falling. As we rode over the reef, the waves got bigger and I once again fell. This time my left foot grazed a piece of the reef. It hurt, but I quickly got back on the board. There were people on the beach laughing at me – enjoying the comedy of my falls – and I needed to catch up with everyone.

When I finally arrived at our destination, 10 minutes behind everyone, my wife said, “What happened to your foot?!”

Blood was flowing from a gash on top of my foot, and my foot was turning an odd reddish-purple color.

I said, “I think I kicked some coral.”

The instructor said, “That wasn’t any coral bro. That’s fire coral!”

I kicked a rare kind of coral that is covered in a bacteria that makes your foot burn like fire. If you don’t do something to kill the bacteria, it swells and gets terribly infected.

As I rode back to the beach my foot burned! I fell more than on the way out. My arms and legs were cut up from hitting the board when I fell. I was incredibly frustrated.  I finally laid on the board wanting to quit.

The beach seemed like a million miles away. But I couldn’t stop now.

I finally mustered up the courage to keep going. I literally spoke to myself saying, “Don’t quit Brandon. You can do this. Don’t let the board win.”

Many falls later, I finally made it back to the beach.

I collapsed on my beach chair, and learned that the quick solution to fire coral burns is to rub a lime on the cut to kill the bacteria. OUCH!

My first experience on a paddleboard was horrible. I have the scar to prove it. But I decided that I couldn’t let the paddle board win. Our last day on the island we got paddle boards again and I finally got the hang of it!

By the end of that day, I actually enjoyed paddleboarding. I can’t wait to do it again.

Here is the point. My paddle boarding experience is a lot like ministry.

Sometimes you feel like the waves keep crashing on you. You are tired. You are physically and spiritually in pain. You kicked the fire coral. There is blood in the water. No matter how hard you try or what you do it feels like you keep falling.

It is no secret that many pastors contemplate quitting regularly. Being a pastor is incredibly difficult. Jesus never promised it would easy. But don’t quit.

Ministry is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. It is not just one fall, but many consecutive falls until you finally learn your balance.

It is not how you start that matters, but how you finish.

It may not look pretty, but if you keep fighting to get back up, eventually you will see a difference.

You may need to rest for a day or two and let your wounds heal. But don’t pack it in! Get back in the fight. Get back out on the water. Don’t let the enemy win!

Your church will get where God wants it to go. Lives will be changed. Marriages will be restored. The lost will be found. The dead will be raised to life. The blind will see.

You have to believe that. You have to keep your eyes on the horizon. Take the beating, but don’t give up. Get back on your board and fight.

Jesus never quit on us.

There is a discouraged pastor today who is reading this article. This is for you. Get back up. Don’t quit now.

Cling to the promise of Galatians 6:9