Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: At the Pulpit (11/15/07)
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TITLE: First Things First | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Wennekamp
11/21/07 -
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Peter couldn’t help but think about his first day in this pulpit. A young pastor, a young husband, nothing but future. Today it felt as if there were no future any more. All of his dreams seem to be fading into the past. How did it come to this place? Where did he go wrong? How could Stacey even think that they could split up and not continue on this path that God had started them on? She felt the call to ministry just like he did. She seemed just as excited as he when they were placed in this church. How could she think that anything was more important than what they have here? God had called them here, to this work, at this time. They were a team.
Peter thought back to his discussion with Stacey last night. Remembering how his precious wife was in tears and telling him that she could not do this anymore. “You are never home! I am tired of sitting here alone while you are off with everyone else that needs you. Don’t you see that I need you?”
Yes, sometimes his work called for long hours. He wasn’t home as often as he wanted to be, but it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be home. It was his job, his calling. What was he supposed to do? He was expected to be there whenever there was a need. He tried to explain it to her. Tried to talk some sense into her, but all that he had succeeded in was watching his wife walk out the door. That was the hardest thing that he had ever experienced in his life. Watching her walk out the door was excruciating, watching his dreams ripped from him. He knew that he could no longer continue preaching, leading a congregation, being a pastor if he couldn’t hold his own family together.
Then it hit him and he cried out to God, “Oh Father! She is right! My first thought was not that the love of my life walked out. My first thought was that my ministry is over without her, that a divorce would ruin me and my ministry, not that my wife just left me.”
After a night on his knees praying, he realized what he had to do. He had to save his marriage, not because he was a pastor, but because he was a husband. God gave him Stacey as a gift, and it had been a long time since he had treated her as such. Today he was going to do what he knew was right, no matter how hard it was. From the pulpit he was going to ask for a sabbatical. He was going to explain that he had not been treating his wife the way he should have. He would tell them it was time he put the first things first. God called him to have a relationship with Him first and foremost and his wife second. Being a pastor was his job, and yes, a job for the Lord, but still his job. He had put his work for the Lord ahead of the Lord and his wife. He had to take the time to get things right. Time to show his wife he does care about her and that he will set boundaries to make sure that she knows that now and in the future. It was time for him to fulfill the true calling on his life. To be the man of God that he was supposed to be- a husband. And he would start right here, at the pulpit.
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