The Collision that Shapes Every Pastor

Most pastors think they’re exhausted because of the obvious stuff. The calendar that doesn’t quit. The sermons that keep coming like waves. The constant needs of people who expect you to be more than human. And sure, all of that wears you down. It piles on until you can’t breathe. But here’s the thing: those aren’t the real problem. They’re just what the problem looks like on the surface.

The real break is buried deeper. It’s subtle, slippery, hard to even name—and honestly, terrifying to admit. It’s the collision happening inside you every single day. The crash between your deepest desire and your deepest fear. That’s the hidden fault line. That’s why you’re restless, anxious, bone-tired. And until you face it, no time off, no new system, no quick fix will ever touch the thing that’s really breaking you.

Desire as Design

Every pastor I know carries a fire inside. It’s not about filling pews or ticking boxes on some ministry scorecard. It’s not even about being “faithful to the call” the way the system defines it. It’s something deeper. A God-wired hunger that says: This is what I was made for.

The problem? Ministry systems don’t know what to do with desire. So they choke it. They baptize it in words like “responsibility” and “sacrifice.” Wanting becomes selfish. Dreaming becomes dangerous. Longing becomes childish.

So you bury it. And you tell yourself you’re being holy.

But desire doesn’t die just because you bury it. It goes underground. It twists. It leaks out sideways. And when it finally surfaces, it often shows up as frustration, cynicism, burnout—or the kind of secret rebellion you swore you’d never fall into.

Fear as Guardian

If this were only about desire, it would be simple. But desire always drags fear to the party. The bigger the desire, the bigger the fear sitting across from it. You know the fears: failing, being rejected, running out of money, losing the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build. But if we’re being honest, those aren’t even the deepest ones.

The real fear is this: If they knew the real me, they wouldn’t love me. If I chased what I truly want, it might blow up everything I’ve built.

That fear is what keeps you small. Safe. Shallow. And the tragedy is you can dress it up as wisdom or humility, but really it’s just fear calling the shots. So you end up preaching about freedom on Sunday while you spend the rest of the week locked inside your own cage.

Here’s the ugly truth: desire on its own is just fantasy. Dreams with no cost. Fear on its own is just paralysis. All walls, no life. But when desire and fear collide? That’s the only place authenticity can actually be forged. Most pastors never go there. They avoid the crash at all costs. They keep busy. They perform. They hide behind sermons that sound right but feel hollow in their own chest.

That avoidance—that refusal to face what’s really happening inside—is the deeper reason pastors are burning out in record numbers. It’s not the workload that’s killing you. It’s the collision you keep running from.

The Fault Line

Think about earthquakes. Two plates grinding against each other underground. Pressure building slowly, quietly, for years—until the day it breaks. That’s what this feels like.

It’s why you snap at home over the smallest things—your kid leaves a backpack in the hallway and you blow up like it’s the end of the world. It’s why you can’t rest, even when you’re supposed to be resting—on vacation, you’re still glued to email. It’s why you’re awake at 2 a.m., arguing with imaginary people in your head.

The shaking isn’t from the surface. It’s from the fault line underneath—where your desire and your fear have been at war so long you’ve forgotten what stillness feels like.

Why Your Body Knows First

Your body always tells the truth before your mouth does.

Psychologists call it “approach-avoidance conflict.” Your nervous system is built to move toward what you want and away from what you fear. But when the same thing—your calling, your dream, your relationships—holds both your deepest desire and your darkest fear, your body doesn’t know which way to go.

It’s like slamming the gas and the brake at the same time. So your chest gets tight. Your sleep evaporates. You grind yourself into the ground and convince yourself it’s “dedication.” And you wonder why you can’t power through like you used to.

This isn’t weakness. It’s not lack of faith. It’s your whole system screaming for resolution.

How It Shows Up in Leadership

If you’re honest, you can trace this collision everywhere in your leadership.

You avoid conflict. You want to speak truth, to name what’s broken. But you’re terrified of rejection, so you let the dysfunction live another day. You overwork. You ache to matter, to make a dent. But you’re so scared of being insignificant that you grind yourself down until your body and family can’t take it anymore. You isolate. You long for intimacy, for someone who actually knows you. But you’re more afraid of being exposed than you are of being lonely. So you hide behind the role and call it holiness. You play it safe. You want transformation. But you’re terrified of failure. So you polish the machine instead of birthing anything new.

Every crack in your leadership traces back here. It’s not one issue among many. It’s the issue.

Scripture as Witness

Even Paul admitted it: “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want—this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19)

That wasn’t laziness. That wasn’t distraction. That was collision. The pull of desire and the grip of fear tearing him in opposite directions. If Paul himself lived in that tension, why do we pretend we’re above it? Why do we equate spiritual maturity with never struggling, instead of learning to live honestly in the middle of the struggle?

Most pastors don’t burn out because ministry is hard. They burn out because they spend their lives running from the collision inside them.

Where We’re Going

That’s why I’m writing this new series. Because when you drill down to the bottom of almost every struggle, you find the same collision waiting there.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to walk straight into it:

• The Ache of Desire – What you really want but are scared to even name.
• The Anatomy of Fear – How fear pretends to be wisdom or humility or faithfulness.
• The Collision – Why desire plus fear isn’t the problem—it’s where authenticity begins.
• The Evasion – How pastors use busyness and “success” to avoid dealing with their inner war.
• The Invitation – Why facing both is the only way to stop living fractured and start living whole.

This isn’t theory. It’s survival.

The Invitation

So before we start, I need to ask: what desire have you shoved under the pile of responsibilities? What dream have you kept in the dark because it feels selfish or dangerous to admit out loud? And what fear has been steering your life behind the curtain? The one that whispers in your ear before every decision. The one that follows you into every meeting, every sermon, every sleepless night.

This series isn’t about escaping that collision. We’ve all tried that—it doesn’t work. This is about finally walking into it. Because until you face what you’ve been avoiding, you’ll keep living split in half. Preaching freedom while personally imprisoned.

But if you risk it—if you face the thing that’s been chasing you in the dark—you might finally discover what it means to be known. To be whole. To be free.

This is why you’re so tired. And this is where everything starts. ◼︎

You don’t have to figure this out on your own.

Here’s how we can walk with you:

→ Take the Free Ministry Survival Assessment
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Tim Eldred has spent over 35 years in pastoral ministry and coaches pastors and churches who are ready to move beyond merely surviving. He founded The Authentic Pastor to help ministry leaders find freedom from the pressures and systems that wear them down.