The Problem With Hindsight

July 22, 2011
One of the things I remember from my early days of serving as a local church pastor is the sticker shock I experienced when I saw the price tag of the group health insurance for the ministers in my state. The plans would often change year to year as some new insurer took over. It turns out ministers are a high-risk group! That may seem surprising to some of you, but the reasons are not that hard to understand. Ministers often work long hours, answer phone calls at all hours of the night, walk with families through heartbreak, put a lot of themselves into their work…and often don’t take care of themselves very well. It is the last part that is the killer, literally.

In 1944 at Yale University, standing before young ministers on the cusp of their careers, Paul Scherer warned them to take care of themselves. It is an odd thing that ministers, called to be stewards of the Scripture and of the congregations they serve, are often not good stewards of themselves.
“My word to you is that you regard and treat this aspect of your ministry as fundamental. The training of the body may be of small service, as Paul says, when you compare it with training for the religious life (I Timothy 4:8); but squanderers of health are quite as culpable as any other squanderers and profligates. They will answer for it. The plain fact is that you cannot serve God as you might with an instrument that you have abused; whether from ignorance or with full knowledge, whether by harmful habits or by careless inattention makes no difference. And Life and God will some day render their account and want to know why.” (Scherer, For We Have This Treasure p. 33, 34)

I suspect ministers are not the only guilty parties here. Recently, my wife and I joined the fitness center run by the hospital. If you work here and you take a few steps, you can join it for free. FOR FREE! She has been going almost every day. I went with her to a Zumba class for the first time the other night. I don’t know if the ache in my gut afterward was from trying to copy the instructor’s moves or from laughing so hard at myself as I tried to keep up. It was a lot of fun and a great work out too.

He spoke from the hospital bed, aided by the oxygen flowing through the tubing that hung over his ears and under his nose. “If I had known I was going to live so long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” he said, half smiling and totally serious. His story was as clear an example of 20/20 hindsight as I have ever heard. But that is the problem with hindsight. It yields wisdom, to be sure, but the consequences of the lessons learned are sometimes irreversible.

Life and God will indeed render their account.

I’d rather learn from forewarning any day. You?

Blessings to you all,
Jerald