Confessions of a Pastor God Had to Rescue
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” — Luke 15:20
I’ve been doing a lot of reflection on my time pastoring in Oregon. On one hand, I can honestly say it was one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life. However, on the other hand, it exposed some of the worst things about me.
Let’s start with the good.
The calling of God that I believe I have on my life is humbling. To proclaim the gospel, to minister to the hurting, to be present at weddings, baby dedications, funerals, and deathbeds was never a job for me, but a privilege. I can honestly say I never viewed what I did begrudgingly.
To teach the Word of God on a weekly basis was an honor and a responsibility that I never took lightly. Having a front row seat to people saying ‘yes!’ to Jesus was miraculous.
Now for the not-so-good part.
I was blessed to pastor a very loving and gracious church filled with many amazing people. Many pastors might prepare you for the bad days, the emails criticizing every word you said on Sunday, the messages saying families are leaving because of you, the sin issues you have to confront. But no one prepares you for the praise.
When you pastor an amazing church like I did, people are very vocal about their love and gratitude. But when love and gratitude turn into people believing you’re sinless, perfect, and can walk on water… I actually loved it.
The praise and applause weren’t just nice. They became addicting.
My family was no longer my highest priority. Almost everything I could want as a man was handed to me easily by people in the church. So I gave them my all. I listened to the press. My ego grew, even when it was masked in false humility, and I started believing Jesus was lucky to have me on His team.
Pastors rarely say that out loud. But it’s true.
I found myself believing that if my ministry grew, God’s ministry would grow. So I started liking the stage and the spotlight. The thing that once scared me began to excite me. Expansion became the goal. Two services wasn’t enough. We needed three. Then four. Bigger buildings. Bigger budgets. More people. All for what I told myself was the Kingdom of God… when in reality, I was slowly building my own.
Now you might read that and think, Ryan, were you just a wolf disguised as a pastor?
I don’t think so. I hope not. But what I can tell you is this: I am human.
And that realization has been both humbling and healing.
Somewhere along the way, I started believing a version of myself that wasn’t real. Not intentionally. Not maliciously. But subtly. Gradually. The drift didn’t feel like rebellion. It felt like success.
No one warns you that affirmation can be just as dangerous as opposition. Criticism can drive you to your knees in prayer. Applause can make you forget to kneel at all.
I wasn’t chasing fame. I was chasing fruit. Or at least that’s what I told myself. But fruit became metrics. Metrics became validation. Validation became identity. And identity slowly shifted from son of God to successful pastor.
And that is a dangerous trade.
The scariest part is this: I still loved Jesus. I still preached truth. I still cared for people. Which made it easier to justify the drift. Because when outward ministry is thriving, it’s easy to ignore inward decay.
I don’t think I was a fraud. I think I was a man who didn’t realize how susceptible his heart was to praise. A man who mistook platform for purpose. A man who slowly started drawing life from the very thing he was supposed to hold loosely.
As I was trying to keep up that image, the reality was that I was running on fumes. But I justified it because I told myself it was for the Lord and His people. The enemy knew my weaknesses, and in a season of vulnerability, I caved to sin in my life, sin that would not only affect me and disqualify me from that season of ministry, but also deeply and painfully affect my amazing wife, my children, the church, and so many others. It was a painful season on all sides. There were days I didn’t think I had a future. There were days when shame and guilt weighed so heavily on my chest that it was hard to breathe. There were nights when I prayed that if I went to sleep, I wouldn’t wake up.
I lost my ministry.
I lost relationships I thought would last a lifetime.
I disappointed people who had trusted me with their spiritual lives. Hundreds, if not thousands, of them.
I thought my marriage might be over.
I thought my kids might grow up resenting me.
I thought everything I had spent years building was collapsing in a matter of days.
And maybe the hardest part wasn’t what others thought about me.
It was what I started believing about myself.
And for a while… I didn’t see any way out of this season.
And the silence was deafening.
Because when you’re the one who is supposed to have answers, who do you go to when you are the problem?
Pastor friends didn’t reach out. Ministry colleagues distanced themselves when they realized I had nothing left to offer them, and the loneliness was immense.
I knew the verses. I had preached the sermons. I had counseled others through their failures. But suddenly all of that felt like it belonged to someone else’s life, not mine. I felt disqualified. Exposed. Afraid. Not just afraid of consequences, but afraid that maybe I had finally broken something God couldn’t fix.
Shame has a way of convincing you that your story is over. That you’ve stepped outside the reach of grace. That you’ve used up your chances. That God may forgive people like them… but not people like you.
I honestly believed my story was over. I had preached restoration to everyone else, but I didn’t think it was meant for me anymore.
Life as I knew it was over in a blink of an eye. But was that really a bad thing?
God, in His mercy, began exposing so many things in me.
Not to shame me.
Not to discard me.
But to rescue me.
Because the same God who calls us is also the God who refuses to let us build altars to ourselves and call them ministry.
When most people bailed, Jesus remained.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I truly experienced the tangible grace of Jesus, and it came through my wife. Grace, in short, is one-way love. Josh White, in his book Stumbling Toward Eternity, writes, “Grace is love without contingency.”
And that is exactly what my wife showed me.
When I expected distance, she leaned in. When I expected disappointment, she showed compassion. When I thought I had disqualified myself from love, she reflected a love I didn’t deserve. And in that same season, my pastor would continually remind me, “On your worst day, Jesus is crazy about you.”
I used to preach grace. Now I know it in an entirely different way. No longer is it a concept. No longer is it just a sermon. Now I know it as oxygen.
And I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the mercy of God is not reserved for the polished version of you. It rushes toward the broken one. The man I once was tried to build something for God. The man I’m becoming is learning to simply walk with Him.
Grace didn’t meet me at my best. It found me at my worst and called me loved.
So if you’re reading this and you feel like a failure… like you’ve blown it, gone too far, or disqualified yourself from anything good God could ever do with your life, I want you to hear me: your story isn’t over. God is not finished writing it. His grace is not reserved for people who have it all together. It is for you. And on your worst day, when shame is loud and hope feels distant, my prayer is that you would know deep in your bones that Jesus is crazy about you. He doesn’t love some future version of you, He loves you.
Well may the accuser roar, of sins that I have done; I know them all and thousands more, my God he knoweth none. — His Be the Victor’s Name
The passage I was supposed to preach the week I resigned from the pastorate was Joel 2:25–26. That wasn’t coincidence. That was God’s kindness.
“I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten… You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God.” — Joel 2:25–26
