Facing discouragement

If you are in ministry for any significant time you will come across discouragement.  Everything seems to be fine and then something happens which just sets back all the progress you feel that has previously been made. It may be a pastoral crisis, it may be illness, it may be someone leaving or moving, or it may be an accusation against one of the leadership.  However, discouragement doesn't necessarily follow any one of these, it is not inevitable.  But when it is more likely to hit is when there is a combination of some or all of these.  Or when there is just a growing feeling of helplessness, a lack of vision, or a frustration of vision which leads us to think that things are just pointless or hopeless.

There are a number of ways we react to discouragement depending on a variety of factors; age, personality type, outlook, health, tiredness, and circumstances.  We may get down, just struggling due to a lowness of spirit that leads to a lethargy, or we may get angry, bitterness invades our soul and effects everything manifesting itself in a resentment of others, a desire for sympathy and a criticism or blaming of other ministries.

I guess I write this because I know all of the above.  I recognise the sin that lies behind it; sins of pride, desiring reputation and significance, failing to trust in the sovereignty of God, having my view of what my ministry should look like rather than trusting God knows what he is doing.  My reason for writing this post is to try to think through how we help one another during these times, because in ministry in a fallen world we will face discouragement and I've found that people are singularly clueless in how to help me when I am discouraged.  In fact sometimes their "help" actually adds fuel to the fire of frustration and helplessness.

Here are some things that don't help:

• Sympathy - don't feed the monster.
• Platitudes - at least show you have experienced and thought about this and are dealing with a real hurting person who is personally struggling with real issues or simply shut up!
• Doctrinal lectures - the issue here isn't not knowing the truths it is a struggle to rub them into our lives, to see them in our situation.

Things that do help:

• Presence - isolation only magnifies things but presence, even if it is just silent presence, helps.
  
• Space - This may sound counter to the first help, but when discouraged we need time to process and do the talking to ourselves that needs to be done.
• Food - I'm not making this up.  When Elijah is discouraged God provides him with food.
• Rest - The second things God provides Elijah with is rest.  Sleep is restorative.
• Biblical narrative - it's helpful to spend time in God's word seeing how God deals with his discouraged servants.  So I've mentioned Elijah twice already from 1 Kings 19, just seeing how tenderly God loves and cares for him restores my soul, it reminds me God cares more about his mission than I do, and that he has plans to grow the gospel beyond my capability or ministry or lifetime.  That perspective matters both on God, self and ministry