The impact of this virus has been immense:  1) Do people wear masks at worship or not? 2) Do we re-open worship in person or go virtual or both?  3) Do we worship inside or outside on the parking lot or lawn? 4) Do we honor government officials or First Amendment rights? 5) Will our schools re-open with children or will learning be online?  6) Will a vaccine be ready in the fall or later or not at all? 7) Nationally, unemployment is still high and business closures continue.  8) The country is divided between who to chose for the next president – Donald Trump or Joe Biden. 9) Pastors and church members miss full worship services and times of non-social distancing fellowship.  In my conversations with pastors there is a growing song of lament, feeling of fatigue, and creeping sense of discouragement setting in.

Discouragement is not the same as fear and doubt.  When you’re discouraged, you are literally “dis-couraged.”  It’s when a courage that you seemed to have had previously has been taken away.  That’s what happened to Elijah in I Kings 18.  God calls him to confront the prophets of Baal, a pagan fertility god.  Without so much as a flinch of the eye, Elijah does exactly that.  But Jezebel, the wife of the king Ahab, who was prone toward Baal worship, put out a contract on his life.  So he ran.  Elijah had mustered plenty of courage to face 450 prophets and have them killed, but he was scared to death of one woman.  So afraid he went to hide in the mountains.

As I listen to pastors, there are signs of exhaustion, weariness, fatigue and a growing discouragement beginning to appear where courage had previously found a home.  Most of the pastors I know give their all in being obedient to the call of God on their life.  They love the church where they serve or the specialized ministry where they meet the needs of people.  They roll up their sleeves and make the necessary adaptive changes in these challenging times like COVID-19.  They take on extra responsibilities in connecting with people who they can’t see face to face.  They accommodate others by logging too many hours trying to hold things together in a normal way.  But pastors express that they are tired, fatigued and even discouraged in this season.   

Hear these words from Galatians 6:9: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”  Pastors, take care of yourself during the season of COVID-19.  Take the time to find space for the rest that is needed, laid back time with family and friends, and renewal and prayer time for connecting with Jesus.  

God’s answer to quarantines, racial tensions, riots, the demands of online services, the challenges of re-opening, dozens of unprecedented decisions, and discouragement is HOPE – “Heavenly Oriented Practical Experience”.  It’s when we can get through the muck of life’s challenges and disappointments because our lives are orientated toward the Lord Jesus Christ.  Hope is God’s message for the muck of COVID-19.  Just as God appeared in sheer silence to the discouraged Elijah hiding in the mountains, God will not leave you alone in the muck.

Psalm 42:5 reads, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him.”  It’s no surprise that the opposite of discouraging is “en-couraging,” or having courage put into our lives rather than taken away.  That’s the business we’re in as the body of Christ, the harbingers of hope for one another and for a world full of disruption.