Killed the Horse
Topic : Burnout (cf. Workaholic)Of nineteenth-century preacher Robert Murray McCheyne: After graduating from Edinburgh University at age fourteen in 1827 and leading a Presbyterian congregation of over a thousand at age twenty-three, he worked so hard that his health finally broke. Before dying at age twenty-nine he wrote, “God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I have killed the horse and now I cannot deliver the message.”
Of Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the U. S. Senate, “In Peter’s case, I am certain that it was not God’s ideal will that he die of coronary occlusion at forty-six” (Catherine Marshall, in Something More). After his first heart attack a friend asked, “I’m curious to know something. What did you learn during your illness?” “Do you really want to know?” Peter answered promptly. “I learned that the Kingdom of God goes on without Peter Marshall.”
