God And Going Postal

Postage has gone up.

(Yay.)

I recently came across a story in blogdom that might make this a good thing. Turns out, a pastor was sick, tired and fed up with ministry. It was late on Sunday after a full day of preaching and he felt yet again that he was facing a bunch of zombies and malcontents and he had had enough, thank you very much. So he sat right down and wrote his congregants a letter. It wasn’t exactly a letter of resignation but he did confess, “Perhaps my work here is finished.”

Where was his wife in this? No, she wasn’t telling him to pray on it, sleep on it, see if he feels differently in the morning. She wasn’t giving the poor man any of those tender, wifely “suck it up, mister” speeches. She was pulling the letters out of the printer, stuffing them in envelopes and addressing them by hand! Then, before midnight, she was at the post office opening the central mailbox of their town and dropping the stacks of letters inside.

Later the next day, all of the letters found their way back at the church office. Not realizing postage had gone up overnight, they were returned to sender, marked “undeliverable” because there was not enough postage!

“This isn’t funny, Lord,” he railed to the ceiling. Then he busted out laughing.

Shamed by his own impulsiveness, that pastor thanked God that that day, of all days, the post office had decided to raise the price of a stamp and quite possibly saved his job.

The next time you want to quit, ask yourself:

(1) who am I doing this for? Myself? Or the Lord?
(2) who stands to lose the most if I quit?
(3) exactly how have I arrived at this decision?
(4) have I sought counsel from those who would tell me the truth? (avoiding them tells a lot)
(5) will this decision deepen my character, or betray it?
(6) is this decision best for the long-term, or short-term?
(7) will intimacy with Christ grow? Or wane?

Do you have any other questions worth asking?