Pastor . . . Before You Quit . . .

Here's a thoughtful piece on Crosswalk.com by Joe McKeever. This is a short excerpt -- to read the entire article click on http://www.crosswalk.com/pastors/11546110/

The best laugh I've had in a while came from one of our pastors who wanted to resign and the Lord put a stop to it. He sat in my office this week and told us what happened.

Under the stress of the church situation -- every church has its situation -- the pastor felt he had taken all he could stand. So, he sat down and wrote a letter to every member of his congregation. He didn't exactly resign, but came close to it. "Perhaps my work here is finished," he confessed.

He printed out the letter and, against her better judgment, his wife helped him stuff the envelopes and apply the stamps. He dropped them off at the post office and drove home.

Now, we old-timers could have told him not to act rashly, that these things often look different after a good night's sleep, and that at the very least he should have let that letter "set" overnight and read it more dispassionately the next morning. But, he had done it and that was that.

Or so he thought.

The next day, every single one of those letters was back in his mail box. The cost of postage had gone up that week and he had not put enough stamps on them.

The pastor stood there glaring at all those returned letters and recognized God had sent him a message.

"It ain't funny, Lord," he called out, just before breaking into laughter.