Be Encouraged

Life may be difficult. There are highs and lows. One can easily be discouraged and give up. I have seen many men give up in life because of the many problems they were going through. But I want to encourage you that there is hope in not giving up.

In the last two weeks I have handled some of the most difficult marital issues in my counseling sessions. Two of the married men have run away out of their homes leaving behind their wives and children. In another case, a wife has ran away from her marriage. I was also speaking to a young man who was so discouraged since he was not getting satisfied with the job he was doing. Yesterday I was speaking to a lady that shared with me her disappointments in life and that once she contemplated of committing suicide. There are many other areas in life that one can easily get discouraged and disappointed.

Discouragement and disappointment are normal emotions we all experience even as men, but it’s important to know how to make sure those debilitating emotions don’t get the best of us.

Reasons why we get discouraged and disappointed.

1. Discouraged with oneself

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. We too can feel discouraged and even depressed when we fail to live up to our own or someone else’s expectations.

2. Discouraged with life’s circumstances.

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

3. Discouraged with wife and friends.

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.

4. Discouraged with God

One 50-year old man once said that he has waited for God to give him an answer but that God had delayed. So he looked for ways to help himself and forfeited his faith in God.

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 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.

Discouragement happens, even to the strongest and best of any man. Herewith are the steps you can take when you start to feel discouragement is encroaching on you.

A. 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 man 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.

B. 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.  

C. Pay attention to your thought life.

Maturing as Christian men means we learn to think truthfully;

Philippians 4:8; ‘Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things’.(NKJV)

And to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ;

2 Corinthians 10:5 ;‘casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ’,(NKJV)

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.

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. 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.

D.  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; ‘And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God’.(NKJV). Paul 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.

E. 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 Nahum 1:7

‘The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him’.(NKJV) If we’re not in close trusting relationship with God, life’s troubles can become unbearable.

Psalm 27:5

‘For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock’.(NKJV) 

Psalm 27:13

‘I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living’.(NKJV)

Finally

The best way to chase out a negative feeling is with another feeling. The Bible teaches us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18

‘In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you’.(NKJV) 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.

Where is your hope? Is it on temporal issues or eternal issues? Do you lose sleep because of small matters? Be encouraged. You cannot do anything about your history or your past. BUT you can change your future. Put God first in your life and you will not be discouraged.