Chess is a game of strategy. In order to capture your opponent’s King, you have to play carefully, thinking two to three moves ahead. Finding the best placement for each piece is crucial. Once victory is in site, you can hardly wait to emphatically cry, “Checkmate!”

Ministry is tough. Our hearts are prone to dissatisfaction and grow weary very quickly. When the pressures of pastoral ministry begin to stack up, the desire to run creeps in. We find ourselves continuously unhappy with our circumstances and begin to wonder what it would be like to pastor a different church or serve in a different capacity.

We begin to pray whiney prayers like “Lord… you know my situation,” “These people are just so _____,” or “I’ve been here for ____ years now…”

Discontentment is a weed that distracts from God’s will for you now. Foundationally, discontentment is pride. It begins to grow in the heart when you begin thinking you deserve better or more than you have been given. The motive for pastoring shifts from sheep-tending to shepherd-wandering. You begin to pursue what’s next for you and look at your current role as a launching pad for your next church that you truly believe is much better than the one God has you at now.

Pastor, you primary calling is to the people God has you with now, not who you think you deserve… or who you want to have…. or who you wish you had. Your ministry is to who God has given you. As we labor faithfully in our current positions, we are to do so with an assured understanding that God has us where he wants us and will move us when and where he wants us, in his timing, not ours.

As we consider the God’s course of history, let us remember that our opponent has already been put in checkmate. The head of the enemy has been crushed and our King has been crowned. And that King is working all things to the glory of his great name. Stand confidently and contently in God’s pleasing placement for you and your family, until he moves you otherwise.