Overcoming Discouragement

Overcoming Discouragement

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
2nd Thessalonians 2:16-17

With all the trials and troubles that we face in our daily lives we will all get discouraged at some time. Discouragement can become contagious and affect the people around us, our coworkers, our friends and even our families. Discouragement keeps us from being effective for God, as we cannot witness to others when we are downtrodden and at our wits end. It can cause us to isolate ourselves, and focus on our own trials and troubles instead of seeing the needs of others. Discouragement can cause us to lose our perspective about others, as we only see our dark valleys and the storm clouds hanging over our heads. This is what happened to the people of Israel, as they assumed their situation was hopeless, and could not foresee how God would deliver them from their plight. They became physically and mentally exhausted not being able to see the good things that lay ahead. We need to realize that when we become discouraged that God still hears us, and so often this is when we begin to seek God for His deliverance. So often it takes trials and tribulations to befall us before we will begin to seek God and ask for help. When things are going good in our lives, we don’t go to God and thank Him for our blessings, but when the storm clouds roll in, we turn our eyes to heaven and ask for His help. God only wants one thing in return for His assistance in helping us with our problems, and that is to offer ourselves to Him, and to ask Him into our hearts. John 6:35 “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
My Daily Devotional Volume III
January 15
Robert William Brock, Jr.