Most pastors and ministry leaders/caregivers often find themselves alone, apart from the crowd. They may not say they’re “lonely,” but they’d probably say they feel separate from others in some ways. Charles Spurgeon tells a true story about a lonely pastor with a surprise ending that will inspire you to trust God in your trials.
It’s almost too dark to see this lonely pastor in his damp prison cell. It’s a horrid dungeon with filth lying on the floor. A cold draft blows through the only slit in his tiny cell bringing shivers till his bones ache. The poor old man has no cloak, just a thin ragged garment.
The lonely pastor remembers his recent trial when no witnesses came forward to vouch for his innocence. He has done nothing wrong. He is a law-abiding man who has given his life to speak about the love of Jesus Christ and to share that love with those who are lost, sick, poor, and broken-hearted.
Nearby his prison are people that he has ministered to. They came to faith in Jesus Christ under his teaching and care, along with many thousands of others. But in his hour of need before the judge no one came to defend him. In his prison no one came to bring him a cloak, a book, or a smile.
In years gone by multitudes came to hear this solitary pastor and many were his close friends, but in his prison no one came to him. This pastor is alone. He is forgotten. There is just a prison guard who drops off just enough bread and water to keep him alive. And occasionally a doctor checks in on him.
Alone, But Not Alone
But this lonely pastor will tell you, “The Lord is standing with me and giving me strength” (2 Timothy 4:17, paraphrase). He remembers the cross of Christ and he kneels down to pray to his unseen Lord who is with him.
Later he dips his pen into the ink and writes a letter of encouragement to a young pastor that he mentored who is now 600 miles away. At the end of his letter he pleads, “Can you bring me my cloak and my books? Please come quickly, for winter is upon me!”
No doubt, the Tempter comes to this lonely pastor, slithering like a snake in the dark he hisses, “Why have you lost everything for Christ? Why have you become poor and worked day and night for the Church? You endured poverty and beatings to minister to people, but even they have forsaken you. Look, no one will even bring you a cloak! God has abandoned you! Give up your faith!”
“No!” the pastor answers. “I know the One I have believed in” (2 Timothy 1:12, paraphrase).
This pastor is the Apostle Paul, pictured above in Rembrandt’s painting. At the end of his life he was kept alone in a prison that was attached to Caesar’s palace in Rome. Then he was beheaded.
The Anguish and Agony of Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers from England in the 19th Century, tells this story of Paul’s last and lonely imprisonment because he related to it. (See The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Pulpit 9, which I have paraphrased from.) Spurgeon was imprisoned in his bed with gout. He wrote:
It is a great mercy to be able to change sides when lying in bed. Did you ever lie a week on one side? Did you ever try to turn, and find yourself quite helpless? Did others lift you, and by their kindness reveal to you the miserable fact that they must lift you back again at once into the old position, for bad as it was, it was preferable to the other? …It is a great mercy to get one hour’s sleep at night.
For months at a time Spurgeon’s body was racked with severe pain and he was isolated to his bed. As awful as that was, he said that the persecution he experienced was even worse. Despite his immense popularity with the public, he was viciously attacked in the media and by liberal and fundamentalist ministers alike.
At the end of Spurgeon’s life he was so bitterly reproached and lost so many close friends that shortly before he died he said to one person, “Goodbye; you will never see me again. This fight is killing me.”
It seems that Charles Spurgeon ended up as a Lonely Leader. (Recent studies on “Pastor Stress” indicate that as many as 70% of pastors today suffer from loneliness in the ministry.) But like Paul before him, at the end of his life Spurgeon could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7, NIV). He persevered because he trusted in his unseen Lord who was with him.
Encouraging Words for Hurting Pastors
Spurgeon offers encouraging words for pastors, ministry leaders, and others serving Christ who suffer from pain, loneliness, criticism, or lack of appreciation:
God is our God for ever and ever — not in sunshiny weather only, but for ever and ever. This God is our God in dark nights as in bright days.
Go to him, spread your complaint before him… If Paul had to suffer desertion, you must not expect better… David has his Ahithophel, Christ his Judas, Paul his Demas, and can you expect to fare better than they? As you look at [Paul without a] cloak, as it speaks of human ingratitude, be of good courage, and wait on the Lord, for he shall strengthen [your] heart. “Wait, I say, on the Lord.” (Quoted in Bright Days, Dark Nights with Charles Spurgeon by Elizabeth Ruth Skoglund.)
Spurgeon describes the blessed peace that comes to us even, when we’re suffering physically or emotionally, if we wait on the Lord in prayer:
As long as I trace my pain to accident, my bereavement to mistake, my loss to another’s wrong, my discomfort to an enemy, and so on, I am of the earth, earthy, and shall break my teeth with gravel stones; but when I rise to my God and see his hand at work, I grow calm, I have not a word of repining. (Quoted in “The Anguish and Agonies of Charles Spurgeon,” by Darrel W. Amundsen.)
