“It got to the point where I really thought that death would be sweeter than pain. But each time I would go light up a candle, and I’m still hearing all this inner stuff, a thousand voices screaming at you, accusing you, like, ‘You’re the lowest, you’re not worthy of anything or anyone around you.’”
These are the words of 10-time Grammy Award winner Carlos Santana, the brilliant musician who pioneered the fusion of Latin American music with Rock. He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Despite Santana’s success, he heard “a thousand voices screaming” at him that he was “the lowest” and that he was not “worthy of anything or anyone.”
Sadly, I think many pastors feel this way and live with great inner turmoil and insecurity. Perhaps this is why:
- 1,700 pastors leave the pastorate every single month
- 80% of pastors and 84% of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged as role of pastors
- 70% of pastors constantly fight depression
- 70% say they have a lower self-image now than when they first started
- 70% do not have someone they consider a close friend
As an elder/pastor myself, I long for people to know Jesus and experience His grace just as I have. But the reality is this, entering into God’s Kingdom happens in an instant; but growing as a beloved child of God takes a lifetime. And I think it’s here where the breakdown occurs.
We discover that God loves us, but we think we have to keep His love through our performance. Instead of being honest about our brokenness, we hide in and behind the “work of the ministry” and neglect the work and ministry Jesus wants to do in our hearts.
Simply put, we are looking for affirmation. We are looking for God to say, “Son, I love you. And I’m proud of you simply because you are my son.”
As pastors, secretly and sometimes not so secretly, we long for affirmation through ministry success. This leads to all types of sin and disfigurement of the soul.
Carlos Santana found his affirmation. We would be wise to marinate on his words:
“But then I would look at a picture of Jesus and say, ‘Help me,’ and then, very clearly, inwardly, I would hear this one voice that’s softer and louder than all the others, and it would say, ‘I am sitting next to you. Isn’t that enough?’ Once I heard that voice, something would shift, and I’d be able to find joy again. . .”
Elder/pastor, Jesus is enough. You have all the affirmation you will need “in” Christ. Let Ephesians 1:3-6 (NLT) melt into your heart, let these words fill your inner emptiness.
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.”
You are BLESSED in Christ (Eph. 1:3)
You are UNITED to Christ. What’s true of Jesus is now true of you because you are in Him (Eph.1:3)
You are God’s ADOPTED and BELOVED child in Christ (Eph. 1:4-5)
You are CHOSEN in Christ (Eph. 1:4)
You are HOLY and FAULTLESS in God’s sight in Christ (Eph. 1:4)
You bring God the Father PLEASURE because you are in Christ (Eph. 1:5)
Elder/pastor, so now praise God because you belong to Jesus. Jesus is your affirmation, not pastoral success or failure.
We can only silence the thousand inner voices by listening to the ONE voice that says, “Son (Daughter), I love you. I’m proud of you because you are in Jesus.”
