Sunday is always a long day. I’m a pastor, so Sunday is not a day of rest. And I recently realized my sermon isn’t the most important part of my day.
I pastor Emmanuel Baptist Church, with its towering steeple, at the corner of a busy intersection in Humboldt, Tenn. We are what is now considered a normative-size church in the post-COVID-19 era. I am bivocational, meaning I serve as the church’s pastor while also working a full-time job outside the church to support my family financially. After a full week at work, my Saturdays are filled with family time and last-minute sermon preparations.
And then comes Sunday. I typically preach morning and evening messages. Afternoons go to Sunday evening preparation. Some weeks I also teach Sunday School. Sometimes I meet with church members who need counsel or have a concern. God has blessed me with the opportunity to do important work on Sundays.
Recently, I finished the evening service, and I was spent physically, mentally, and emotionally. Your pastor may not tell you this, but Sunday nights are particularly emotional for some reason. I’m either on the mountaintop of a glorious day with the saints, or I’m in the valley over a fumbled sermon or a burden for a struggling church member. Either way, the emotional extremes can make you dog-tired.
And I was almost to the finish line that Sunday evening. I just had to get my oldest daughter in bed; then I could rest. Then it happened. My daughter asked me to read to her. I was in that dog-tired state, but she asked me to read her the Bible. I realized it was one of those opportunities sometimes disguised as an interruption.
But of all the Bible stories, she chose Ezekiel prophesying over dry bones! I couldn’t even get an easy Bible story to close out the night. I could knock Noah’s ark, Daniel and the lion’s den, or Jonah and the great fish out of the park. Telling a 5-year-old about Ezekiel preaching to a valley of skeletons without scaring her right before going to sleep is not the challenge you want at the end of a long day.
As we sat together in her bed, I read a portion of Ezekiel 37 and explained that God can breathe over a dry, barren life and bring renewal. He can take a person who was spiritually dead and make them live. I saw a glimmer in her eye and realized a seed of the gospel had just been planted. There, in that still, simple moment, it hit me: “You just did the most important thing you’ve done all day.”
The most important thing you’ll do today has nothing to do with your vocation, ministry, or your bank account. It isn’t the task you complete or the accomplishment you claim on the job. It certainly isn’t your title at the end of your professional email.
The most important thing you’ll do today will happen at home.
We only have so many hours a week at home with our families. We must cherish and redeem the time. These fleeting moments are the most important moments of our lives. Your spouse and children need your best. We must not let the pressures of the daily grind erode our sensitivity to what God can do through us at home.
There is a time and a season for the important work we do outside the home, and we can even do that work to the glory of God. Even so, the most important thing you’ll do today is to live for Jesus in front of your family.
And for pastors, that may mean realizing that even the sermon that morning wasn’t the most important moment of the day. B&R