When we live with an entitlement for recognition, we give our effort exalting ourselves over others so we will appear great. Jesus’ medicine for this tendency is brotherhood. He told his disciples, “You all are brothers,” undercutting their hierarchy, games and socio-political competitions. If we are all brothers and sisters, I don’t need to focus my attention or energy on becoming greater than anyone. We are family because of our shared connection to the Father, not because of pious performance.

“I guess I just imagined things would be different than they are. This isn’t how I thought it would go. . .”

I sat with a friend from out of town, catching up over coffee and pastries. We talked about how the last year of ministry had gone, and the whole conversation was laced with sadness, disappointment, and weariness.

When I was twenty, I graduated from a Christian university with a ministry degree, some internship experience, and a head full of ideas of how church was supposed to be. My wife of two months and I packed up our little apartment of secondhand furniture and moved hours away from our families and friends to work at a church in Kansas City. It’s a good church with good people, but I quickly realized ministry is different than I thought it would be.

I wasn’t the confident, charismatic, visionary leader I imagined when I fantasized about my future. Young adulthood is a tumultuous time where many of the stabilizing forces in your life change and you figure out who you are in a new way. I discovered I was more anxious, self-conscious, and restless than I had thought. I learned that I had a lot to learn.

Temptation and Virtue

In my first year of ministry, I honed in on how Jesus framed leadership for his disciples. As Jesus worked with his disciples, he focused specifically on the nature of leadership. He would often send them out to apply what they’d learned, then process their failures when they returned. Like me, they had certain expectations for the way a leader would behave and be treated, often exemplified by their fixation on “glory.”

I was confronted and challenged by Jesus’ words to his disciples in their temptation toward entitlement. Some of these same temptations kept cropping up in my life.

So I made a list of temptations leaders face, and paired them with virtues in Jesus’ own character and teaching. Framing these temptations of entitlement side-by-side with the virtues of humility and fidelity is helping me stay grounded as I work through my own temptations. Perhaps they can help you as well.

Humility Shrinks Your Need for Recognition 

I entered ministry wanting to prove myself: to my friends, my parents, my wife, my church, and to myself. I wanted to show I was worthy of affirmation. I wanted to be perfect, and to lead perfectly. I wanted to check all the boxes of what a healthy ministry should look like.

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