A Good Example

 

While going to college, I worked to pay my way through.  Let me give you a bit of advice on student loans: don’t do it.  Pay as you go.  It took me 11 years to graduate from college, but when I graduated, I was debt free.  But … I digress.  I worked night shift at Mueller company making cast iron valves and fire hydrants.  One job that I had was slagging the furnaces.  I had to scrape off the crud from the top of the liquid iron in the furnace.  Iron melts at 2800° Fahrenheit!  It was a hot and dirty job.  Often, my boss would come up to my station, tap me on the shoulder, and tell me to take a break.  Then he would do my job for me while I sat down and cooled off.  Soon, I would recover and begin to feel guilty watching my boss doing my job.  So, I would get up, tap him on the shoulder, and get back to my work with renewed vigor.  He was a wise man.  Just like a wise pastor who doesn’t drive his people like horses, or prod his people like cattle, but lead his people like sheep.  A wise pastor is an example to his people, not a lord over his people.  The Apostle Peter said it best in I Peter 5:2&3, “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.”