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But I wasn't in my church office, I was at my other work as a substitute teacher. Sitting in a high school science class, behind a big desk piled up with various papers and projects, with the very possibility that a high school student could walk in at any moment, which I am sure only made me cry more.
The reason for my tears, pastor guilt.
Someone had made a passing post in an online forum about how they arrived at a church that was locked, and the disappointment they felt at a church being locked in the afternoon.
My church was locked in the afternoon, just like nearly 5-6 out of 7 afternoons because, as I said, I was currently at my other job, sitting in a high school classroom.
I began to think of the people disappointed as they arrive at our church doors, only to find them locked. I began to get angry that this person didn't understand my story, the sacrifices that we've made to start a church here, to renovate an old church building, and to make ends meet. But it wasn't that anger that made me cry, it was the overwhelming sense of guilt that I wasn't being a good enough pastor.
Guilt is a horrible feeling, especially when it's connected to your self worth and call. It does crazy things to your mind and heart, and makes you do crazy things like ugly cry in a high school science class. It also diminishes all the good that is happening, all the amazing ways that God is working, and if left to take root, leads to hopelessness.
Being a bi-vocational pastor adds another element to this feeling of pastor guilt. Am I spending too much time at my other work? Am I devoting the same passion to my pastoring as I am to my other job, or visa-versa? Am I spending enough time with my family? Is my house clean enough? Am I managing my time in the best ways possible? Sometimes the answer is no to those questions, because the reality is, being a pastor is really really hard. It's hard whether you work another job or not.
It's really hard to work with people who say "you aren't at the church enough", while other people tell you "you're at the church too much, you need to be out in the world more." It's really hard when once a year you have to write down the numbers of people who go to your church in a report, and feel like people are looking down on you because of your number. It's hard when you think "nobody knows what that number 12 represents. The tears I've cried, the letters I've written, the sermons I've preached, the difference I'm making." because they don't know, and many won't take the time to know. It's hard when your house is messy, with piles of laundry on the floor, as you change your clothes from one job to head out to the next, and do a sniff test to make sure that if nothing else, at least you don't smell like you haven't done laundry in 3 weeks. It's hard when people don't like you, when you do too much, or not enough. It's just really hard.
It's easy to feel guilt. It's easy to get overwhelmed by that guilt, and if we let that guilt take root, it's easy to have it turn into hopelessness.
Being a human is hard as it is. It isn't just pastors that fall into this trap, it's all of us, feeling as though we don't exercise enough, or work hard enough, or look put together enough.
Enough with the guilt trips already!
I know this is the part where I'm supposed to say "you're great!" "you're doing an awesome job!" Along with some great uplifting bible verse, with some quotes of how awesome you are, but I'm not going to do that. Because the truth is, sometimes you aren't great, sometimes you don't do an awesome job; I know I certainly don't.
The ball drops at times. We say yes to too many things, and then all those things end up becoming a source of anxiety instead of joy. We ugly cry at our job because we allowed some passing comment that was in no way meant to wound us, wound us, and make us feel guilty.
There are times we are on point, and things are flowing, but there are just times they aren't. Where the sermon doesn't come together, where we said or did the wrong thing, and I won't sit here and pretend like sometimes those failures aren't big and messy.
BUT, I will say that we serve a God that redeems. A God who looks at our mess, our too many yes's, our ugly cries at inappropriate times, and still chooses to use us, in spite of it all. That is why we don't need to carry around guilt. Guilt leads to hopelessness, but we are not a hopeless people, we are a redeemed people. A people who know that if laid at the feet of Jesus, what looks like our greatest failure (and maybe it is our greatest failure) can be redeemed and transformed into something amazing for the Kingdom of God.
Be encouraged in the midst of your mess, in the midst of your guilt, not by trite comments of how great you are, but by the hope that you don't have to be great, you just have to be faithful to the one who has called you in the best ways you can today. Even if your best are 3 day old t-shirts, and tears in science labs, know that God can redeem even these moments, and just let go of the guilt.
