Preaching With A Wounded Heart

This blog is intended for pastors. Specifically for pastors who struggle preaching each Sunday and Wednesday night with a broken, wounded and downtrodden heart.

All people get a wounded heart from time to time. The ordinary tasks of life still have to be done no matter how damaged the heart is emotionally. Life goes on. Breakfast has to be cooked. Dishes still have to be washed. Duties at work must still be performed no matter how broken and defective the heart feels. These are tough enough to do but they are not preaching.

Preaching at its essence is heart work. Heart work  that is first done in the preacher and then passed to the hearts of the listeners. When the preacher's heart is wounded the heart work of preaching is suffocatingly difficult. The teacher's wounded heart feels all it can do is bleed rather than giving people hope and comfort.

How many preachers have awakened early on a Sunday morning in the emotional depths of despair and could see no possible way they could ever get up in front of people and preach. The heart feels empty. It can feel like there is nothing in the spiritual and emotional tank to give anyone. The wounded heart feels numb to the truth. It is still truth in the mind but it does not feel so true in the wounded heart.

The source of the wounds in a preacher's hearts are varied. It could be unrelenting criticism form the parishioners. The wounding might come from personal battles with sin, from dysfunctional family dynamics, from empty pews and from unanswered prayers. These only scratch the surface of the many things that wound preacher's hearts.

Brothers, how many of you are preaching with a wounded heart and nobody seems to notice or care. The thought of another sermon presses heavy against you and seems unbearable. To stand before the very people that have assassinated your character all over town but now sit in the pews ready to scrutinize every word you say is suffocating. To look out at a sea of faces that have betrayed you, gossiped about you and that stare at you with menacing eyes filled with hatred makes you want to lay your Bible down and walk away forever.

O brothers of the wounded heart you are not alone. Others have preached with wounded hearts. Let me give you just two examples. Charles H. Spurgeon was criticized by other preachers, the newspapers and some of the leading theologians of his day. Not only that but he had an invalid wife and suffered from gout as well as two other diseases. He pressed on preaching in that Metropolitan pulpit for over 30 years. Even when he did not feel like it. Even when his heart was wounded.

Let me introduce you to another wounded pastor. Charles Simeon. His flock did not want him to be the pastor. They despises him so much the pew holders locked their pews refusing to let the attenders have a place to sit in worship services. Those that attended the services had to stand. This lasted for twelve long years. Yet, Simeon persevered in that church for over 50 years. He kept preaching with a wounded heart and eventually won the people over.

Be encouraged God gives strength to preach even with a wounded heart. Two simple scriptures for strength and comfort tonight by another preacher who knew preaching with a wounded heart.

Galatians 6:9 (NASB)
⁹  Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.


Philippians 4:13 (NASB)
¹³  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.


Paul kept preaching with a wounded heart. So did Spurgeon and Simeon. I have done it numerous times. With God's enabling I know you can too.