If you want the spiritual strength to tackle the unique challenges of ministry, it’s important to start and end your day by refueling your soul. Your soul is the way you think, feel, and choose. 

Just like your physical body has to be fed every day to stay healthy, so does your soul. If you’re not feeding your soul, you’re going to be drained emotionally and spiritually.

As a pastor, you spend most of your life giving to others. But you can’t consistently feed others unless you’re letting the Lord feed you as well. The quality of your ministry leadership depends upon the quality of your relationship with God. 

That means you need to get into God’s Word every day. Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4 NIV). 

The Bible is life! You don’t just read it when you have a problem and need some advice. You don’t open it up just when you need to prepare a sermon or give hope to someone else. You must feed on it every day so you are consistently nourished and growing in truth and love.

Do not begin your day by scrolling through your phone or listening to the news. Don’t let the last thing that fills your mind each day be something on the TV. None of those things are going to feed your soul.

Start and end your day in God’s Word. It doesn’t matter how long you read. It matters how you let God’s Word change you—how you see yourself and others in light of God’s love, how you view your ministry, and how your relationship with God deepens and grows.

“The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will” (Isaiah 50:4 NLT).

God has given you the mission of comforting the weary in our world. You know as well as anyone that there are a lot of weary people in our communities today.

So nourish your soul and stay emotionally healthy by starting and ending each day with the Word of God. That will give you the spiritual strength you need to minister to the needs of your congregation.