Ouch! You poked my ego!

“Preaching is not supposed to be about egos, but there is nothing like preaching to remind you that you have one.”

— The Moody Handbook of Preaching

We all have egos. Thus we all have a tender spot. And chances are, there are people who – intentionally or unintentionally – poke those tender spots.

To this day, I remember one fellow I pastored for several years who would faithfully meet me at the door at the end the service (and he was a regular attender!) and say, “Well preacher, that was a pretty good sermonette.”

Week after week; year after year.

Not good (never great!), just pretty good.

Not a sermon, just a sermonette.

In all the years I served him, he never gave me a win. He never gave me the satisfaction of feeling like I had done a good job for him.

I don’t know if it was intentional or unintentional. I don’t know if he meant it to be a put down or if I just took it that way. Only time will tell.

This I do know, you’ll never get beyond having an ego. It’s part of being human. But here’s the deal, whether intentional or unintentional, when someone pokes your tender spot, don’t take the bait.

Another one of my axioms is: You can have a growing church or you can have a growing ego, but you can’t have both.

Thankfully, I chose the growing church and didn’t turn the man into an enemy and I’m far better for it.

And here’s the irony, that dear man has gone on to meet his Maker and I have every confidence that what he heard was “Well done, good and faithful servant.” For he truly was – in Christ – a good man, in spite of his irritating habit of not feeding my ego what it wanted.

And today? I can chuckle about it all…for the truth is, he was probably more right than wrong.

The ONE THING for today: Live easily today. Don’t be so quick to take offense and be even slower to give it.

Photo by Orkun Azap on Unsplash