Richard Rolle

I believe that a person who is actively engaged in vocational ministry could simultaneously be struggling to maintain a healthy relationship with Jesus because as people it is easy to become discouraged when we don't see the fruits of our labor blossoming. When we work and pray for God to move and for improvement and we don't see it, we could start to give up on God because things aren't going how we thought. While this is happening we could continue to work in vocational ministry because it's all the we know, we could be jobless if we left, and we want to keep our personal status at a high level, so we don't talk about struggling, we just drift further and further from God.

This could potentially be dangerous for the minister, their family, the church because the minister could lose his or her passion and start to misuse their gifts, trying to work for God but losing the fruits of the spirit. For example, while working with people you could be trying to do the right thing and share the gospel but some small mistake happens and you get angry in front of whoever is around without handling the situation with patience. This could damage peoples view on christianity and ultimately Christ himself. The minister would notice this happening and just get angrier and angrier with himself and God, eventually this spiritually misery would leak out onto his family and potentially spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically scar the other members of the family.

Some steps we could take to prevent this from happening would be to realize that it's not your ministry but God's. If the ministry fails, it's not always your fault. Also, we should stop putting expectations on our lives, when we don't meet the expectations placed on us, we automatically think we've failed. That simply is not the case. The most important would be to humbly present yourself before God every day, letting him guide you through everything that happens. Make time for him, to talk to him, aside from your ministry, just for your personal relationship.