“I quit”

Friday, October 22, 2021

Tonk Talk              

      She was a nurse.  She quit the other day.  It was not due to her refusing to be vaccinated or a problem with her pay.  It was her patients that made her quit.  The story goes there was this guy who was dealing with Covid, and he was having lung problems.   He ended up having a lung transplant.  The doctors and nurses watched this man very carefully, especially this one nurse.  She really cared for her patients.  As this man was recovering, he would sneak out of the hospital and go to the liquor store.  He would get drunk and come back to the hospital at night, cold, wheezing, and coughing.  He was a mess.

                   This nurse would rush to his aid, get the oxygen, and nurse him, even going over her eight-hour shift.  She was tired, she had back problems, her leg muscles were all knotted up.  Standing sixteen hours will do that to you.  But finally, she nursed this man back to health, he was breathing again, she takes away the oxygen, and then there he went back to the liquor store.  This happened over and over, with different patients.

                   So, at the end of her shift one night she had enough; she finally quit.  Why should I care?  They don’t care!  Let them die she said.  The next morning, she goes to work.^[i]

                   Then there is this preacher.  He quit too.  It wasn’t because of a bad sermon he preached, or even an elders’ meeting that did not go so well.  It was the church members who made him quit.  The story goes that each Sunday he would do his very best to present the word of God.  He would study for hours each week to prepare his sermons, “to rightly divide the word of truth.”  He would sometimes spend hours studying the Bible with people, some who wanted to become a Christian, others who were Christians but needed more teaching.  At the conclusion of each sermon and Bible study, he heard the same thing, “thank you, preacher,” or “great lesson, preacher.”  As the person would go back into the world, being mean, unforgiving, sleeping around, drinking, using profanity, and every other sin one can think of. 

Didn’t they listen to anything I shared from God’s word? He would say to himself.  Then Sunday came; again.   There were the people again, coming in late, weary from their wrongdoings, bad attitudes, and blatant disregard for spiritual things.  They had not changed from the week before or even the weeks before of Biblical preaching.  They had not repented, changed, or corrected their lives at all.  This happened week after week.  Like the Apostle Paul, this preacher carried the daily pressure of the church (2 Cor. 11:28).    He was tired emotionally, mentally, and even physically.   Yet, the preacher mustered his strength once again as he mounted the pulpit.

He got through the sermons on this Sunday, but that night he was at his “wit's end”; the “final straw had been drawn”; he quit.   He finally quit.  Why should I care?  They don’t care!  They don’t listen! They don’t repent!  Let them die in their sins he said. 

The next morning, he goes to work.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”  (1 Cor. 15:58)

Written by Mark T. Tonkery

 i Adapted from a story by Fred B. Craddock (Craddock Stories, P.41)

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