Their wives are sorrowing due to neglect. Their children are rebelling and don't want to have anything to do with church because Daddy's idol is the pulpit.
These preachers put the pulpit before anything else—even before their relationship with God. Ministry has become their god. They are driven, not led. They have no time for family, and very little time for prayer.
Even if they see that they are in a crisis, it's hard for them to pull back and put life's priorities back into proper order. Like a moth drawn to a flame, they seem irresistibly drawn into the grinding machinery of ministry to the point that they have developed an addiction to ministry.
They are, in a sense, workaholics, directing all their energies and drawing their fulfillment from ministry at the expense of the other areas of their lives.
The tragedy is that many times the exact same weaknesses and problems exist in the lives of those who mentored them. Rather than learning from the mistakes of their mentors, they reproduce them.
Unfortunately, this even happens in the area of moral failure. As your fathers did, so do you. Paul exhorted Titus "...to be sober minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility..." (Titus 2:6-7).
In like manner, he told young Timothy to "...be an example to the believers..." (1Tim. 4:12). Your life is a blueprint that someone will follow. Whether positive or negative, someone will follow the pattern you set!
People who weren't even aware that I was learning from their examples have shaped much of my own spiritual life.
I learned the importance of obedience to God by the example of an old woman named Eva, who, despite the fact that it made her unpopular to some, faithfully shared whatever message God had put in her heart.
I learned to trust God for strength by watching another aged saint we called Mom. She was close to eighty years old, and yet she single-handedly raised six orphans, ran a ministry, and had oversight of a small business.
I learned the value of praying in the Spirit (1 Cor. 14:2) by observing a traveling evangelist, whose meetings I drove hundreds of miles to attend. He would arrive several hours early to his meetings, find an isolated spot, and pray until it was time to start the meeting.
I learned the power of boldness from the example of a country preacher who, despite the fact that he had no teeth, preached the gospel without apology and boldly prayed for miracles.
I learned to live by faith through the example of the young boy who brought me to Christ and his family.
I learned to listen in my heart for God's wisdom from the pastor I served for two years when I first entered ministry. People came to him with the most difficult questions and situations and, time after time, I listened as this profound wisdom flowed from his lips. He had learned the secret of listening to God with the ears of his heart while at the same time listening to people with the ears on his head.
All of these people served as patterns for me, and I owe much to their faithful examples. But what of us? What kind of spiritual blueprints are we laying out for others to follow? Are our lives worthy of imitation?
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