{"id":4420,"date":"2015-04-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2015\/04\/13\/taking-pains\/"},"modified":"2015-04-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T00:00:00","slug":"taking-pains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/taking-pains\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Pains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tI was ready to quit. For real, this time.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI know I was serious, because I went to tell my pastor. I did not (and do not) make major life decisions without talking to my pastor about it. My pastor just happened to be my dad.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI sat down in Pa&#39;s office and broke the news to him. I planned to resign from my church. I had succeeded my father, who served the church for 40 years before moving to a new church. And I was getting the whippings they could not give him.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe conflict had lasted several years. I couldn&#39;t take it anymore. I was too young and had too much ahead of me to waste any more time in this extended conflict, or so I thought.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-text-align-left alignleft is-style-article-callout is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\n\tYou cannot minister to others for the Lord&#39;s sake without experiencing seasons of pain.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\n\tWhen I finished my speech, Pa warned me how difficult it is to organize a church from scratch. But I had absolutely no intentions of starting a church. I would become a TV talk-show host before I did that.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWhen no counsel seemed to work, he mentioned a sermon he had recently heard that I should listen to. He buzzed his assistant and asked her to bring him a copy of the particular sermon.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI told him that wouldn&#39;t be necessary. Turned out it was my sermon! I had preached it at his church several months ago. It was on steadfast endurance during difficult seasons.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tPa acted shocked. &quot;No. That couldn&#39;t have been you! That had to be someone else!&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\n\tNope. It was me.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tGently, he told me that he understood what I was going through. He realized that I was tired of fighting and would give anything for a week of calm. That I just wanted to stand up on Sunday and preach in peace.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHe was dead-on.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThen he assured me that running was not the answer. &quot;If you want peace,&quot; he admonished, &quot;wherever you go next, don&#39;t mentioned the name Jesus. Don&#39;t preach about him. Don&#39;t let the choir sing about him. Don&#39;t do anything in his name. Because if you lift up the name of Jesus, Satan is going to come looking for you!&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHe then concluded this counseling session with the strange advice. &quot;Son, you need to be still and let Rev. Thorn minister to you.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI knew a lot of preachers. But I did not know a Rev. Thorn. &quot;Who is that?&quot; I asked.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHe handed me his Bible and told me to turn to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=2%20Corinthians+%2012%3A1-12%3A21\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" title=\"view Scripture passage at BibleGateway.com\" rel=\"noopener\">2 Corinthians 12<\/a>. His point became apparent as I read Paul&#39;s words.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, &#39;My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness&#39;&quot; (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=2%20Corinthians+12%3A7-12%3A9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" title=\"view Scripture passage at BibleGateway.com\" rel=\"noopener\">2 Cor. 12:7-9<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;Son, your problem is that you want to minister to others,&quot; he continued. &quot;But you won&#39;t let Rev. Thorn minister to you. Sometimes, God will make you sit down and let Rev. Thorn minister to you. And you won&#39;t be able to move on until you let him minister to you.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThen he prayed for me. I didn&#39;t like what I heard that day. I was hoping he would offer me a job, not advise me to be still and let suffering run its course. Ultimately, he was right.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tYou cannot minister to others for the Lord&#39;s sake without experiencing seasons of pain. And there will come a time when you will have to take what you minister to others and minister it to yourself.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRev. Thorn has an extensive ministry among pastors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-article-bio\">\n\tH.B. CHARLES, JR. is pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Church, Jacksonville, Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-article-copyright\">\n\tCopyright &copy; 2015 by the author or Christianity Today\/<em class=\"citation\">Leadership Journal<\/em>.\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/le\/help\/permissionsprivacy\/permissions.html#answer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"copyright\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a> for reprint information on <em class=\"citation\">Leadership Journal<\/em>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was ready to quit. For real, this time. I know I was serious, because I went to tell my pastor. I did not (and do not) make major life decisions without talking to my pastor about it. My pastor just happened to be my dad. I sat down in Pa&#39;s office and broke the <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/taking-pains\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":4421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1699],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[177,156,187],"tax_ctp_tags":[3532,3538,3797,3862,4629,5086,5247],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-4420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-h-b-charles-jr","tax_publications-2015-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_publications-spring_2015-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-burnout","tax_ctp_tags-calling","tax_ctp_tags-discouragement","tax_ctp_tags-encouragement","tax_ctp_tags-perseverance","tax_ctp_tags-stress","tax_ctp_tags-vocation"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Taking Pains - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The minister I met when I was ready to quit.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/taking-pains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking Pains - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The minister I met when I was ready to quit.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/taking-pains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-13T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/10\/58326.jpg?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"H.B. 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