When I was young in the Lord (I was 17 years-old and just given my life to the Lord), I found myself going through a difficult time, so I went to my pastor for some guidance. I shared with him my trials and he then instructed me to pray about it, mind you I had already been doing that, but I did as he instructed me anyway, and continued to pray. However, nothing seemed to be changing in my life and the storm around me seemed to be getting darker. So I went to my pastor again and told him I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out, and he again told me to continue to pray (not what I wanted to hear).
I was disappointed as I thought pastors were supposed to give you guidance to help navigate these problems in life. After a while I went to him again with grief and a heavy burden in my life, and once again he told me to continue to pray. I felt like giving up, and I felt like the pastor didn’t really care. I thought, what kind of counseling was that? I could have gone to anybody else and they would have told me the same thing.
Little did I realize he was doing me a huge favor; he was trying to help me establish a relationship with God by establishing a life of prayer. The only way you can get to know someone is by talking to them, and what I thought was rejection by my pastor, turned out to establish my strong foundation with my Lord Jesus Christ. One day, the Lord finally did show up and responded to me.
Imagine if my pastor would have given me other instructions instead of praying, I would have continued to come to him with all my problems. That is not supposed to be the life of a Christian; to go to the pastor for every hiccup in our life. We serve a jealous God (Exo 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), Deu. 4:24, and Deu. 6:15 just to name a few. Many of us go to friends, family members, ministers, etc. We will never learn the voice of God if we keep depending on others. Unfortunately, many pastors, not all, are quick to give counsel on how to handle your storm, when they should be telling you to continue in prayer.
