Observations of a New Pastor pt.5: Alone

I thought it was a stupid statement, one that had neither credence nor truth behind it. I thought this statement was used by men in ministry as a cop-out from portraying what they really felt. But, oh God, it is more true than I ever knew, and shame on me for ever believing otherwise.
“Leadership is a lonely place.”
Though you are surrounded be many people, and though your phone is constantly a buzz, and though your words are looked at with a sense of finality, leadership is a lonely place. The party can be jamming around you and people are flocking to meet you but your heart feels no different than when you’re in an empty silent room.
There is no buffer it’s just you and God, and, quite frankly, some days He’s not great company. Some of you might think that last sentence was awful blasphemy thinking, “Everyday with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.” Let me be the cynic who bursts your bubble. It’s not. Every day is not sweeter than the day before. Every day you grow more aware of the sinfulness of your heart and everyday you wake up to fight tooth and nail against an enemy who knows he’s beat so he fights all the harder. Your eyes open on your pillow and your intentions are already tainted by your sin. You walk the 10-20 feet to the bathroom and you’ve already placed your hope in an idol. You sit-down to eat your breakfast and you’ve already thought impurely of someone.
But here’s the beautiful part, the sweet and sweeter part. Jesus knows (Heb. 4:14-16). So as a pastor who feels this sense of complete aloneness I can cling more tightly to my Savior because he can, and does, sympathize with me in my solitude.
So, I suppose, the ‘lonely place’ is a place where it’s just you and the Triune God. Though He is the one who spurns you he is also the one who comforts you. Though he is the one who disciplines you he is also the wing under which you take shelter. Though his hand is the hand that breaks you, as it does so you reach to kiss the hand that saved you. Thus the quote changes to a question, “Can you stand to be alone with God?” I wouldn’t answer it too quickly either.