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 I
enjoy preaching, I even like the hours of study, and am
challenged by honorable, conflict with error. These things, and
the results I hope God will work through me, help me to bear
what I consider the “hard part” of preaching: “visiting”
people, longing for a “home”, and the constantly nagging
feeling that I should do better.
So,
though our feelings are not identical, I can appreciate the
following frank statements by Daniel Sommer, taken from his
biography recently published by William Wallace. In this day
of “preacher quitting”, When dedication to the Lord’s work
is at a very low ebb, we very much need the selfless
consecration manifested by this soldier of a past generation.
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“Many
preachers can take up and lay aside the important work of
proclaiming ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’; but I
cannot. There are men who delight to preach, and regard it a
high honor; but I do not. I wish I could. In early life I
enjoyed working on a farm and chopping cord-wood more than I
ever have the work of preaching! The good accomplished by my
labors is my only comfort. I am not a natural talker, and don’t
like to talk. On the contrary, there is a vein in my composition
which disgusts me with a talkative man or woman.
Sixty-five
years of labor that has been almost constant has not made much
change. Accurate speech is so difficult for me that I am often
disgusted with myself. I dare not be careless concerning my
speech, and thus I need to be constantly on guard.
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My
memory is naturally defective, and thus I cannot retain and
quote Scripture with accuracy. Hence I wear out my Bible turning
over the pages of the old Volume, in order to read before the
public what it declares... Many who have heard me do not know
how to credit such statements as being strictly true, yet I know
they are true. Besides, I dislike to be in a crowd, and dislike
most of the compliments on my preaching that I hear. I know my
preaching is so defective when compared with that which Christ
did, that I often feel ashamed there of. Hence I have never
enjoyed preaching to any considerable degree. Certainly I have
not enjoyed it as others have who seem generally satisfied with
their efforts.
Many
are by nature much better fitted for the work than I am. Some of
them seem to take delight therein, and I bid them Godspeed. When
I meet those who are better gifted than I air for addressing the
public, I detect it readily, and rejoice in that they have
advantage over myself. I envy no man, and am jealous of no man;
but I recognize that I am individually responsible for the
powers I have, and that God will hold me accountable for my use
thereof. In early life when I contemplated preaching, I had
serious doubts about my abilities; but decided that I could
improve what had been given me, and that nothing short of a
trial of five years could enable me to understand what I could
or could not do. I now think it will take a trial of the
remaining days of my life. I have never yet preached a sermon
with which I was entirely satisfied.” (He died “trying” at
90. rt)
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