We’ve covered ten categories already.  But there are still others, perhaps ones which we tend not to mention:

11. When numbers don’t matter, but it seems like they do. Hopefully we’d all agree that it doesn’t matter how many you preach to each week.  We don’t want to be caught up in finding self-worth from large numbers or fleshly fame.  But at the same time, numbers can discourage.  Why is it still just a couple of dozen (four of whom can’t hear anyway)?  Why is the church not growing?  It would feel better if a couple of hundred could be helped by my ministry, or a couple of thousand.  This is a real issue that often goes unstated.  It seems unspiritual to mention it.  But it is a category nonetheless.  There is a fine line between a well motivated desire for church growth and wrongly motivated desire for personal accolades.  We can only wrestle this through before God and allow His Spirit to convict that part of our mixed motives that is not pleasing to Him.

12. When we feel so cold spiritually. None of us want to preach when our own walk with the Lord is weak, but Sunday comes ready or not.  People pedestal preachers and we struggle to admit struggle.  But there are times when the heavens seem to be brass and your spiritual fire is more of a smoldering wick.  Times when the best you can hope for is that God has pulled back slightly to work in your character, but fears flash across the mind that it is worse than that – something about candlesticks being taken away, or to be more accurate on an individual level, that the Spirit is grieved.  Or there are times when a sin has a foothold in your life and while you may be repentant, you know the problem persists.  These are very real issues for us, whether we talk about them openly or more likely, not.  Obviously we need God for these things, we pray for that.  But perhaps it’s time to stop resisting the help of others too?  Perhaps God will answer our prayers through other believers, but we need to let them in.

Discouragement may come with the territory, but let’s seek to be discerning as to its source.  Then we can at least pray intelligently about a way to overcome it!