Keep Going!

Have you ever felt like giving up on your ministry?

It’s a rhetorical question.

All of us have considered giving up from time to time.  

I wanted to quit every single Monday morning I led Saddleback Church. When you’re tired and your blood sugar is low, everything looks worse than it really is. We all wonder if someone else could do a better job sometimes.

But if you want to be the kind of leader who makes a difference in your world, you can’t let discouragement knock you down. 

Noah had every reason to become discouraged. Everything in his culture was perverted. Not a single person supported what God had called him to do. He didn’t have a church family to support his work. He was lonely and tired, and had an impossible assignment to do. 

Yet he was a model of patience, determination, and faith.  That’s the kind of leader God can use.  

How was he able to model persistence in spite of a discouraging situation? The Bible tells us that Noah trusted God. 

“It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7 NLT).

I know God has called some of you to make significant changes in your church. He has called others of you to embrace a new ministry or reach a new community.

But everything seems to be going wrong. You feel like failure is inevitable. 
No matter what you’re facing, keep going! It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. I’m sure there were many days where Noah didn’t feel like working on it either.

Noah kept going. God uses people who keep going no matter what. 

When we don’t see any tangible results from our ministry, God says to keep going.

When we’re frustrated by the state of society around us, God says to keep going.

When the odds seem stacked against us, God says to keep going.

Paul tells us in Galatians 6:9, “Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up” (NLT).

Pastor, don’t get tired of doing what God has called you to do. The time to reap may be just around the corner.

The most meaningless statistic in life is the halftime score. It simply doesn’t matter. Remember several years ago when the Atlanta Falcons were beating the New England Patriots 21-3? Most football fans counted the Patriots out. No team had ever erased a double-digit halftime deficit to win the Super Bowl.

But at the end of the game, the Patriots won 34-28.

God can do the same thing in your ministry. God has a habit of doing the improbable. He sustained Noah for 120 years as he built the ark. He gave a baby to Abraham and Sarah when they were senior citizens. When God’s own son was buried in a borrowed grave, he raised him from the dead.

So never give up. God’s dream for your ministry may be just around the corner.