Thick Skin and the Holy Spirit

“If you’re gonna be a pastor you better develop thick skin…”

As a young pastor, I’ve heard this advice from many different places. It’s true that ministry is hard, and shepherding the emotionally wounded while maintaining your own mental wellbeing is tricky. How do you walk alongside people in terrible situations and not let it sap the joy out of your life and calling?

Ministry is hard. My first month of full fledged pastoral ministry has been filled with many firsts (some joyful and others heartwrenching), and it’s been trial by fire by all accounts. But as I’ve seen God working and as I’ve dealt with the things which God has brought me to, I think I disagree with the idea that pastoral ministry requires thick skin.

The temptation facing many pastors, in my observation, is to become desensitized and develop a calloused, cynical heart. One thinks of the hard hearts of the Pharisees. The danger is that one can become jaded and disconnected from the world we’re called to love. It’s certainly true that you can’t let the trauma experienced by other people traumatize you as well, but I don’t think thick skin is necessarily the answer.

A hard heart or a hedge of protection?

Let me explain. I was recently given a funeral to lead for a particularly heartbreaking situation. Seeing the devastating effect that death has on the living gave me brand new insight into why Jesus weeps in John 11:35.

In situations like this, we are often tasked with coming alongside people in the deepest levels of grief. The pain is real, and it’s heart wrenching, and on numerous occasions I found myself facing moments which would have caused a younger me to either mentally disassociate or take the weight of the loss on my shoulders personally.

The more life I live, when confronted with the painfully heavy situations like these, I find myself absorbing the depth of the moment, embracing it, and letting it shape me into a more mature person. 

In one sense, you can almost feel your skin growing thicker. Your heart begins to callas over. As the old adage goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But in another very real sense, I don’t believe that’s really what’s going on.

To an (theologically speaking) unregenerate heart, the response would be to harden, block out pain, and become desensitized. But the indwelling of the Holy Spirit changes the picture. This is where theology intersects with practicality.

My experience in handling emotional heaviness as a mature believer matches what theology teaches us about the Christian life. If we believe that the Holy Spirit really takes up residence inside someone upon salvation and begins the process of sanctification, it should come as no surprise that part of that sanctification is equipping the believer to deal with adversity in increasingly mature ways.

An illustration may be helpful. If we imagine the human soul (or mind, or whatever word you want to use for the spiritual faculties God has given us) as a soft foam ball, the idea of a hardened heart becomes more tangible. Anyone with children knows that a squishy Nerf ball, when left outside in the elements, can become crusty and ungiving, it literally hardens when its exposed to harsh conditions. This is what happens when someone who is unregenerate or immature in their faith faces adversity. There is a very real danger for the heart to harden.

Now imagine the Holy Spirit’s indwelling as a protective membrane that surrounds the soft foam ball. Sanctification is the process wherein the Holy Spirit slowly, gradually, over time transforms us into somebody more like Christ. The longer we follow Jesus, the less like our old sinful selves and the more like Jesus we become.

One of the beautiful things about sanctification is that Scripture is clear that the work is done primarily by the Holy Spirit. We cannot claim our spiritual growth as something we have merited ourselves. And yet we are also presented with the moral obligation to join the Holy Spirit in the sanctification process. By this I mean that we are morally responsible for our decisions and behavior. We are allowed to participate in the process, making choices that we would otherwise not have been capable of making.

If we use the Nerf ball analogy, when we first become Christians the protective membrane of the Holy Spirit would be porous and thin. Traumatic things would still effect us, though perhaps not to the depth they did before. But as sanctification progresses, the cooperation between the believer and the Holy Spirit develops into a stronger, thicker protective layer. The more you grow in sanctification, the Holy Spirit absorbs the blows and protects you, allowing you to remain caring and loving while also weathering the gravity of ministry.

This is what I see in my own life. When I’m faced with the heaviness of life and I witness grief and pain on a profoundly deep level, I believe what I feel hardening and growing tougher is not my heart, but the Holy Spirit’s covering which protects my heart. This protects me while at the same time preserving my ability to be tender and sensitive. 

This brings new perspective to the idea of the Armor of God. Each trial, as you lean increasingly on God’s provision and protection to sustain you, strengthens and thickens the armor with which the Holy Spirit protects you.

My thesis is that the longer you walk with Christ, the more mature you become in your faith and the stronger and thicker the Holy Spirit’s protection is, which is what enables you to handle incredibly heavy burdens while maintaining the ability to empathize and love those whom you are called to minister to.

Theology actually matters

Another thing I’ve been struck with, while watching others go through loss and grief, is the actual practical value of good theology and a right understanding of God.

Theology often gets a bad wrap. Why do we need to read dusty old books? Isn’t an emotional experience of God more valuable and more real than old doctrines and discourses of people long dead?

Theology matters. Reading, learning, and studying are not simply the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of being right. It’s not knowledge just for the satisfaction of knowledge itself. The fruitful pursuit of theology must be driven by more than just curiosity.

Good theology really comes into play when tragedy strikes. Many people think of theology as abstract, but in reality it is inescapably practical. Sin and death are a reality in this world. There’s no getting around that, and to deny it is to detach yourself from reality. The question is how do we reconcile the God of the Bible with this reality we see all around us.

Theology is valuable for the fact that it gives us an accurate understanding of the living, perfect, holy God. That alone is reason to believe that theology matters. Knowing God personally, and knowing him accurately, offers profoundly comforting insight when life seems to go wrong. The knowledge not just of what God is like, but a personal intimate relationship with him as a Father provides a foundation on which to process grief.

Many well meaning people say incredibly unhelpful things in an attempt to comfort those experiencing loss. If one does not know God, if one does not understand God’s perfect holiness, his omniscience, his omnipotence, the consequence is that all manner of skewed ideas can come up.

It’s not that God is impotent and is unable to prevent Satan from killing people. It’s not that God wound up creation like a clock and then left it to run on its own. It’s not that God isn’t really good or loving or that he didn’t think about the pain the tragedy would cause. It's not that God doesn't care.

It’s that God created us with the capacity to choose for ourselves. God gave us consciousness and independent mental faculties, and we chose wrong. Sin entered the world, and because of that, sin is the reality in the world we live in. Death, sin, and all kinds of hardships are the experience on this side of heaven.

Really knowing God allows us to recognize that the picture we see is not the entire picture. Really knowing God helps us to trust that the bigger picture God sees is working always and steadily for the good of those who love him. Really knowing God reminds us that evil, though a reality in this world, does not and can not have the final word, even when it seems to win here. God permits evil, but in a display of absolute power uses the very evil that seeks to undermine his plan to bring it to perfect completion.

Understanding this doesn't make the pain and grief disappear, but it offers a foundation which allows you to know that this present reality will one day give way to a better one. To experience loss and greif without this foundation makes it far more difficult to deal with adversity.

This is why knowing God matters. It is not a matter of knowing just to know. It is profoundly practical, and helps offer a foundation of hope, even though the emotional toll of this life is very real.

Good theology allows you to be okay, even when life gets hard.