Let’s face it: we all get down. The ministry can be really rewarding, but it can also be really hard. There are days when it feels like you’ve spent every last ounce of energy you have wading through the muck of people’s choices and problems and feelings. You don’t see the results in the way you thought they’d show, you don’t see change in the people you pray and pray and pray and pray for, you beg the people you’re serving to make the right choices and the they choose to sin instead. You get parents telling you it’s your fault their kids don’t try to make friends, you get co-laborers criticizing your every move, you get unsolicited advice from people you would never go to for counsel based on their attitudes and life choices. You’re beaten down, dragged around in gossip circles, and you can’t seem to make anyone happy. It’s those times that we need encouragement that we can’t seem to find anywhere… except our Father.

Our Lord loves that moment: when He can swoop in with the Word He’s already provided us and the Holy Ghost that lives in each believer to restore our faith and our strength in ways that we could never manage on our own. These are the verses I’ve found lately that really encouraged me to keep going when I’m feeling ineffectual in my ministry:

Isaiah 40:28-31 tells us, “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Isaiah 26:3 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.”

Psalms 119:50 tells us, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.”

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong,” Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

1 John 4:14 says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

“But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing,” we find in 2 Thessalonians 3:13.

Write a couple of these verses down and put them where you can see them. Memorize some of these verses. Pray some of these promises of God’s strength to Him claiming them as His promises. Write an encouraging verse across your mirror in the bathroom. God’s Word is our greatest and most encompassing form of encouragement in the ministry. Are there any verses you’ve found lately that encouraged you to keep going in the ministry lately?

And know this: you’re not alone. At the very least, I’ve just prayed that anyone who looks to this post for encouragement would find renewed strength of mind and spirit.

Love, Meghan