Ministry discouragement has a way of shrinking our perspective until every criticism feels catastrophic and every hardship feels uniquely ours. What we usually need is recalibration. We need someone to lovingly remind us that the church belongs to Christ, not us, and that for all our striving, we were never asked to play the Savior.

There are moments in ministry when quitting feels strangely reasonable.

I’m not talking about moral collapse or a crisis of faith. I mean ordinary exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that settles into your bones after a long stretch of hospital visits and hard conversations. Weeks where you preached your heart out on Sunday only to spend Monday wondering if any of it mattered. Ministry has a way of grinding down even the most faithful servants.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah has reached that point.

What makes the chapter so surprising is that Elijah has just come off the biggest victory of his career. Fire fell from heaven on Mount Carmel, and the people of Israel fell on their faces declaring that the Lord is God. If ministry success could cure discouragement, Elijah should have been soaring.

Instead, he’s sitting under a broom tree asking God to let him die.

“I have had enough, Lord” (1 Kings 19:4).

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