Table of Contents
Volume 41, Number 4
July - August 2010

How to Handle Discouragement in the Ministry (Part 2)
Rev. Randy L. Miller

How to Handle Discouragement in the Ministry (Part 2)

In the last issue, we looked at a time of great discouragement in Elijah’s life in I Kings 19. We continue those thoughts in this issue:

Don’t replay “excuses” tapes in your head. I used to work for a Christian radio station. We had a tape cartridge machine that we used to play jingles and announcements. If you pushed the button, it would play the station identification. Push the button again, and it played the same message once more. Some people are like that with constantly replaying messages they have “programmed” into their brain. Let me give an example. I have been overweight for a good deal of my married life. I would repeat (almost without thinking) some standard “excuses” as to why I was obese. “Well, I have a sedentary lifestyle. I’m so busy I don’t have time to exercise. I don’t really overeat. I just have a slow metabolism. Obesity runs in my family. My mother used to give me whole milk when I was a child. It’s not my fault; I’m just a poor helpless victim. I’ve tried to lose weight, but it just doesn’t work. Blah, blah blah blah blah.” (By the way, I have lost over 85 pounds in the past year and I still have a “weigh” to go, but I have tried to stop making excuses and start eating right and exercising.)

Do you have some standard excuses you always use? I know many Christians have their own mental “tapes.” As a pastor, you hear them make the same flimsy complaints over and over. Perhaps there initially was some truth in what they were saying. You might even agree that this is a problem for them. Their wife is not supportive. They were treated harshly as a child. They grew up in poverty. Their parents were cruel. They’re not that intelligent. They didn’t like school, etc. But even though at first glance there was a bit of truth to what they were saying, eventually any “reasons” they gave have merely become “excuses” for a sinful attitude.

God twice asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Look at I Kings 9:10 and compare it with verse 14. They are virtually identical. Elijah was just replaying his standard “pity party” tape, seemingly without even listening to what he was saying.

Listen to what he told God, “And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Elijah thought God had forgotten and forsaken him. Elijah thought he was the only one serving the true God. Elijah was sorely disappointed in his fellow Israelites. And he was so discouraged that he just wanted to curl up and die. Or at least quit. Or maybe just vent. I don’t know if he knew exactly what he wanted God to do. “God, why aren’t you doing something?” I can practically hear him saying it. He sure was frustrated. Do you ever get that way?

Elijah, are we talking about the same God who just answered your prayer on the mountaintop? Isn’t this the God who just sent fire from Heaven? When we get our eyes off God and His glory and on to our insufficiency we will get discouraged. Comparisons to others can either lead to pride or discouragement. Elijah was right about one thing. Without God’s help, he couldn’t do anything. He should have known better than to mistrust God, but Satan is a great discourager of God’s children.

Sometimes we just need to do business with God. Where did Elijah go? Many don’t realize this, but Mt. Horeb is another name for Mt. Sinai. This was where Moses had met God and received the Ten Commandments, and now another of God’s choice servants wanted to meet with his Lord there. Do you ever just get alone and spend time with God? As pastors, we often prepare spiritual “nourishment” for others but fail to take time in the Word and prayer for our own spiritual conditions. Sometimes we need to just go off by ourselves and get alone with our Savior. Jesus spent time alone with the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. What is your Mt. Sinai? Do you have a Garden of Gethsemane? Where do you get alone with God?

God speaks in a still, small voice. Look at verses 11 and 12. “And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” Sometimes we want God to display His power in some mighty miraculous way (and He can and does still do that), but He typically speaks to His children on a daily basis in His “still small voice.”

That means we have to be quiet, open and receptive to hear what He says. And it also means that we have to tune out distractions that can keep us from hearing Him. I know some people who never want to be “alone with their thoughts” (or God’s conviction in their heart) so they always keep a radio blaring or a television turned on, or some type of noise playing. They can never drive anywhere without a radio or CD going.

You ought to spend time alone with God and seek His direction. Turn off the radio in the car. Turn off Fox News at home. Turn off the e-mail alerts on your computer. Hang a “do not disturb” sign on your office door. Go into your prayer closet. Today I went to a Civil War battlefield and put my hand on a huge majestic oak tree that appeared to be nearly 200 years old and over six feet in diameter. I just spent time alone with the Lord and enjoying the sunshine and the beauty of His creation. I can hear you say it now, “But I don’t have time!” I know. I say that too. But if you don’t “come apart” (and spend time with God) you may really “come apart” emotionally like Elijah did.

God has a plan for your “seemingly impossible” situation. He always does. Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God? He always has a perfect plan and will for our lives. God had not forgotten Elijah. God knew exactly what he wanted him to do. God sometimes lets us “sweat” a little bit to get us to trust in Him and ask him for wisdom. We shouldn’t ask God to “rubber stamp” our plans. Matthew 7 says we should “ask,” “seek,” and “knock.” To me that says God wants us to depend on Him for the provision. We won’t receive unless we ask. We won’t find unless we seek. He won’t open doors in our lives unless we knock. He wants us to take some initiative, but depend on Him to provide. How did God answer Elijah’s “problems?”

Verses 15-17 say, “And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.” God had a master plan and was preparing the hearts and minds of replacement leadership before He ever met with Elijah on Mt. Sinai. His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

By the way, just like in Elijah’s day, God has believers in this world we don’t even know about. We aren’t aware of how God is quietly using other fundamentalists whom we’ve never met. Every time I fly in an airplane and look down on the patchwork quilt of the world from the sky, I think about how God’s work is being done around the world in places of which I’m totally unaware.

Then again, not everyone doing God’s work is an independent, fundamentalist Baptist. Elijah didn’t know about any other believers in the entire land. But God told him in verse 18, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” I have some disagreements with charismatics and Calvinists (to name just two examples), but God can use any of His children He chooses to advance His kingdom for His glory. I’ve seen Him do it. So just because we don’t run in someone else’s theological circles, and they don’t do things exactly our way, doesn’t mean they’re not born again or that God can’t use them.

Remember God’s blessings, but don’t remain stuck in the past. I see many older people who are nostalgic in what I believe to be an unhealthy way. They long for the “good old days” and think somehow that God’s best days must be behind Him. (Isn’t that what Elijah kind of told God?) There used to be revivals, but that cannot and will not happen again according to these naysayers. They are just waiting for the rapture, because “God is through with America.”

Some are trapped in the personal discouragement of regrets for what “might have been.” Imagine if Paul had let himself remain trapped in discouragement for his past life of killing believers. But he said in Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

It must have been exciting for Elijah to throw his mantle on Elisha. Do you resent the younger generation as they take your place or do you do everything in your power to make for a smooth transition when God selects youthful leadership? Let’s finish I Kings 19: “So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.”

There was basically “no turning back” for Elisha. Don’t leave an escape hatch to go back to your old life. I have had my wife take in all my “fat” clothes. I’m not going back there again. Elisha burned his yokes that he could have used to get back into farming. He set his face toward his new ministry. Whenever I read this passage, I think of Dr. Clearwaters, who always used to say that an ox could be used as a “servant” or a “sacrifice.” Are you willing to accept God’s will for you at whatever stage of life and ministry you find yourself in? Don’t let discouragement get you down.