Dr. Annamma Abraham
Discouragement
Discouragement means deprive of courage,
confidence or depression of one’s spirit
When life’s
greatest waves toss you, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count
your many blessings, name them one by one and it will really surprise you, what
the Lord has done for you. If you are burdened with lot of anxieties and
worries and you think it is very difficult to carry your cross, count your many
blessings, and then all the doubt will fly away. When you look at others with
their lands and gold, think of what Christ has promised you- His untold wealth.
So in the midst of your conflicts great or small do not be discouraged, because
there is our God above everything. He will provide you with His help and
comfort till your journey ends.
Let us see some of the causes of
discouragement and the remedies against.
If you are in a
tunnel of discouragement, keep walking toward the light. Lift up your eyes, the
discouraged ones. The Lord will help you, and new strength will come from Him who
said, “For rest come unto Me.”
Matthew
11:28 “Come to me, all who are weary and
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”.
Many
people are deeply troubled because for them God seems far away. They don’t
feel that He cared about their personal needs, so they have difficulty in praying.
Many a times unconfessed sin, a vengeful spirit, pride, addictions and the like
are the reasons for that feeling. But when no sin was evident and the person
submitted daily to Jesus as Lord, read the bible, and prayed persistently, the
best thing is to “Talk to God about your problem and keep doing what you are
doing.”
The
prophet Jeremiah went through a time when God actually seemed like his enemy.
He described his anguish over a God who “shuts out my prayer.”
Lamentations
3:8 even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
He
felt as if God were hunting him down.
Lamentations
3:10-12
10. He is to me like a bear lying in
wait, like a lion in secret places
11. He has turned aside my ways and torn
me to pieces;
He has made me desolate,
12. He bent His arrow and set me as a
target for the arrow.
But
as he expressed his sorrow, Jeremiah saw a light that pierced the darkness and
restored his hope in the Lord.
Lamentations
3:21-26.
21. This I recall to my mind, therefore
I have hope
22. The Lord’s loving kindness indeed
never cease,
For His compassions never fail,
23. They are new every morning, great is
Thy faithfulness.
24. “The Lord is my portion”, says my
soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
25. The Lord is good to those who wait
for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
26. It is good that he waits silently,
For the salvation of the Lord
If
God seems far away from you, even though you are trusting Him and trying to do
His will, don’t despair. Talk to Him about it, keep doing what you know is
right. The light will breakthrough. And when it does, you will be immeasurably
better for it.
Moses
was discouraged at some point in his life
The
complaint of Moses about the people, his heavy burden, and his own life
Numbers
11:10-15
10. Now Moses heard the people weeping
throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger
of the lord was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased.
11. So Moses said to the Lord, “Why hast
Thou been so hard on Thy servant? And why have I not found favour in Thy sight,
that Thou hast laid the burden of all this people on me?
12. Was it I who conceived all this
people? Was it I who brought them forth, that Thou shouldest say to me ‘Carry
them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which Thou
did’st swear to their fathers?
13. Where am I to get meat to give to
all this people? For they weep before me, saying, “Give us meat that we may
eat,
14.
“I alone am not able to carry this people, because it is too burdensome
for me.
15. “So if Thou art going to deal thus
with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favour in thy sight, and do
not let me see my wretchedness.
Discouragement
due to defeat
Israel is defeated at Ai (Joshua is
very much discouraged)
Joshua
7:6-9
6. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell
to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, both he
and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.
7. And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God,
why didst thou ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into
the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell
beyond the Jordan!
8. “O Lord, what can I say since Israel
has turned their back before their enemies?
9. “For the Canaanites and all the
inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and they will surround us and cut off
our name from the earth. And what wilt Thou do for Thy great name?
Elijah
was discouraged, flees from Jezebel and Elijah chose to die because of the
apparent failure.
1
Kings 19: 2-4
2. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to
Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your
life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”
3. And he was afraid and arose and ran
for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his
servant there.
4. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat
down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and
said, “It is enough; now, O Lord take my life, for I am not better than my
fathers.
Discouraged
due to sickness
Hezekiah
king of Judah after his illness and recovery
Isaiah
38:9-20
9. A writing of Hezekiah King of Judah,
after his illness and recovery:
10. I said, “In the middle of my life, I
am to enter the gates of sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.
11. I said, “I shall not see the Lord,
the Lord in the land of living; I shall look on man no more among the
inhabitants of the world.
12. “Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling
is pulled up and removed from me; as a weaver I rolled up my life. He cuts me
off from the loom; from day until night Thou dost make an end of me.
13. “I composed my soul until morning.
Like a lion- so He breaks my bones, from day until night Thou dost make an end
of me.
14. “Like a swallow, like a crane, so I
twitter; I moan like a dove; my eyes look wistfully to the heights; O Lord, I
am oppressed, be my security.
15. “What shall I say? For He has spoken
to me, and he Himself has done it; I shall wander about all my years because of
the bitterness of my soul.
16. “O Lord, by these things men live;
and in all these is the life of my spirit; O restore me to health and let me
live!
17. “Lo, for my own welfare I had great
bitterness; it is Thou who hast kept my soul from the pit of nothingness; for
Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.
18. “For sheol cannot thank Thee; those
who go down to the pit cannot hope for Thy faithfulness.
19. “It is the living who gives thanks
to Thee, as I do today; A father tells his son about Thy faithfulness.
20. “The Lord will surely save me; so we
will play my songs on stringed instruments, all the days of our life at the
house of the Lord.
Remedies
against discouragement
Cast
your burden upon the Lord
Psalms
55:22
Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He
will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
Come
aside by yourselves
Mark
6: 31
Jesus said to them, “Come away by
yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.”(For there were many people
coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)
Lift
up your heads
Luke
21: 27-28
Return
of Christ
27. Jesus said “and they will see THE
SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory.
28. “But when these things begin to take
place, straighten up and lift up, your heads, because your redemption is
drawing near.”
When we begin our walk with Jesus,
we easily shed many of the sins that have weighed us down. We give dramatic
testimonies about being freed from addictive behaviours. Then the attention
shifts to another new believer, and we discover that little sins like jealousy,
resentment and anger don’t drop away as readily as the big ones. Some of us get
so discouraged that we lose sight of our commitment to Christ and go back to
some of our old ways of living. Perseverance makes the difference between
failure and success.
A young minister cherished a note he
received from a busy architect in his congregation. The letter said simply,
“Your sermon met me where I was on Sunday – at the crossroads of confusion and
hurt. Thanks for preaching it!” Those words met the pastor where he lived – at
the intersection of discouragement and pain – and encouraged him to keep on in
the ministry. One little act of kindness can have multiple results.
During
the Boer War (1899 – 1902) a man was convicted of a very unusual crime. He was
found guilty of being a “discourager”. The South African town of Lady Smith was
under attack, and this traitor would move up and down the lines of soldiers,
who were defending the city and do everything he could do to discourage them.
He would point out the enemy’s strength, the difficulty of defending against
them and the inevitable capture of the city. His weapon was the power of
discouragement.
Encouragement,
on the other hand, can be a powerful friend. It strengthens the weak, imparts
courage to the fainthearted. One of the greatest ministries we can have is to
lift the spirits of fellow believers.
1Thessalonians
5:1 and we urge you brethren, admonish the
unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men.
Many
Christians have become weary in their daily conflict with the evil one and are
tempted to give up in their spiritual struggle. They need an encouraging word.
The people who are involved in Christian ministry need expressions of
appreciation and assurance of our prayer support. A little encouragement
can spark a great accomplishment.
Mary
anoints Jesus with a costly perfume. The disciples were indignant when they saw
this and said “why this waste? This perfume might have been sold for a high
price and the money given to the poor.”
Matthew
26: 10-13
10. But Jesus, aware of this, said to
them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed for Me.
11. “For the poor you have with you
always; but you do not always have Me.
12. “For when she poured this perfume
upon my body, she did it to prepare Me for burial.
13. “Truly I say to you, wherever this
gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall also be
spoken of in the memory of her.”
We
can learn a valuable lesson from the devotion of this woman. We need to
break out our best perfumes for the living. Don’t put off until tomorrow.
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