5 Ways to Stop Discouragement
from Getting the Best of You
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
By Leslie Vernick
Discouragement and
disappointment are normal
emotions we all experience even
as Christians, but it’s important to
know how to make sure those
debilitating emotions don’t get
the best of us.
First, let’s look at four reasons
why we get discouraged and
disappointed.
Job felt discouraged with his wife
and friends . They didn’t get it. In
the midst of his suffering and
questioning God, they tried to be
helpful, but they ended up heaping
more shame and blame on Job for
his afflictions. We, too, can feel let
down by our friends and family.
They don’t understand what we’re
going through or don’t offer to
help as we wish they would. Our
disappointment can turn to
discouragement.
Elijah became discouraged with
life’s circumstances. Despite our
persistent and fervent prayers,
things don’t turn out the way
we’d hoped they would. Elijah
hoped that after all the miracles
the Israelites saw performed on
Mount Carmel, Ahab and Jezebel
would repent and put God first,
but they did not. King Ahab and
Jezebel were as stubborn and
hard hearted as always, and Elijah
felt discouraged, exhausted, and
told himself that his entire
ministry was a waste ( 1 Kings
19 ).
Jeremiah felt angry and
discouraged with God when he
believed God was against him,
and because of that perspective,
he temporarily lost hope in God
( Lamentations 3 ).
The disciples too felt discouraged after Jesus was crucified, before he rose from
the dead. They said, “We were hoping that he was the one who
was going to redeem Israel” ( Luke
24:21 ). They couldn’t see the
bigger picture and felt
disappointed that Jesus did not
fight for his kingdom.
Peter felt discouraged with
himself when he realized that he
wasn’t as courageous as he
thought he was. Jesus had
warned him that he would deny
him, but Peter’s pride kept him
from seeing himself clearly
( Matthew 26:31 and 74, 75 ). We
too can feel discouraged and even
depressed when we fail to live up
to our own or someone else’s
expectations.
Discouragement happens, even to
the strongest and best of people.
Below are five (5) steps you can
take when you start to feel the
black cloud of discouragement
swallow you up.
1. Be honest
It does you no good to pretend you don’t feel what you feel. You can’t take action against
a negative feeling until you first
admit you have it. A strong
Christian is not someone who
never experiences negative
feelings. It’s someone who has
learned what to do with them
when he or she has them and how
to process them biblically.
2. Take care of your body.
If your body isn’t working, your mind,
emotions and will are also
weakened. I love how God tended
to Elijah’s body first—before
addressing anything else and
provided ravens to feed him.
Sometimes the circumstances of
life drain us dry, and we need to
press pause, stop doing, and
simply rest and refresh.
3. Pay attention to your thought
life.
Maturing as believers means
we learn to think truthfully
( Philippians 4:8 ) and to take
every thought captive to the
obedience of Christ ( 2 Corinthians
10:5 ).
All of us attempt to make sense of
the things that happen in our
lives. We try to figure out why
they happen and what it all
means. It’s crucial that we pay
attention to what stories we are
telling ourselves about ourselves,
about others, about God or a
particular situation, and whether
or not those stories are actually
true. For example, if you look at
what Elijah was telling himself
after he became discouraged,
much of it was not true, yet
because he thought it, it added to
his misery (read 1 Kings 19 ).
Jeremiah was also telling himself
things about God that were not
true but because his mind
believed his version of reality
instead of God’s, he lost his hope.
Read through Lamentations 3 .
Notice in verse 21 Jeremiah
begins to have a change of mind
and heart. He says, “This I recall
to mind, therefore I have hope.”
When his thoughts changed his
negative emotions also lifted even
though his circumstances stayed
the same.
4. Train yourself to “see” life out
of two lenses at the same time.
When the apostle Paul counsels
us to be transformed by the
renewing of our mind ( Romans
12:2 ), he is telling us that our
mind needs to be trained to think
differently than we have in the
past. Part of this training is to
learn to see both the temporal
(life is hard) and the eternal (God
has a purpose here) at the same
time.
Paul speaks honestly of his
temporal pain when he says he is
hard pressed on every side,
perplexed, persecuted and struck
down. Yet he did not become
crushed, despairing, abandoned,
or destroyed. Why not? Because
he learned to firmly fix the eternal
perspective on his spiritual eyes.
He says, “Therefore we do not
lose heart.… So we fix our eyes
not on what is seen, but on what
is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is
eternal” ( 2 Corinthians 4:8–18 ).
Paul never minimized the pain of
the temporal, yet discouragement
didn’t win because he knew that
God’s purposes were at work.
(See Philippians 1:12–14 for
another example).
5. Press close into God.
The truth is life is hard, people do
disappoint and hurt us, and we
don’t always understand God or
his ways. The prophet Nahum
talks about a day of trouble and
reminds us “The Lord is good, a
stronghold in the day of trouble,
he knows those who trust in
him” ( Nahum 1:7 ). If we’re not in
close trusting relationship with
God, life’s troubles can become
unbearable. The psalmist cried
out, “I would have despaired
unless I had believed I would see
God in the land of the
living” ( Psalm 27 ).
One final tip. The best way to
chase out a negative feeling is
with another feeling. The Bible
teaches us “In everything give
thanks for this is the will of
God” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:18 ).
Gratitude is a powerful anecdote
for discouragement. We may not
be able to give God thanks for the
difficult situation that we find
ourselves in, but we can learn to
look for things we can be thankful
for in the midst of it.
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