Transcript
So there's another subtle but dangerous trap that you can easily fall into when you're facing the unexpected, the unwanted, the unpredicted, the thing that's hard and difficult. It's easy to understand how people fall into this trap. Probably at some point, all of us have, I know I have. It's the discouragement trap. Now here's what you need to understand. Discouragement is not the result of difficulty. There are people who are in difficulty and who are not discouraged. Discouragement is the result of what you are doing with your difficulty, and here's what happens to us.
Discouragement Is the Fruit of Meditation
I can say it this way, the discouragement is the fruit, the product of meditation, because in your in your difficulty, you have to fight your mind being captured, controlled, obsessed by your difficulty, where, where all of a sudden, difficulty commands your meditation. And in all of your quiet moments, in all those moments where you're not self-consciously thinking about something else, you'll go back to thinking about your difficulty. If difficulty captures your meditation, you're going to go down into the trap of discouragement. You see what, what you have to do to avoid discouragement is fight the battle of meditation, because what you need to meditate on in moments of discouragement, is not your difficulty, but on the God who reigns over your difficulty, the God who is present with you in your difficulty.
You know you can take a problem and you can begin meditating on it, and the more you meditate on it, the bigger it seems, the more complicated it seems, and the more defeated you feel. Now here's the danger of discouragement. When I'm discouraged, the next step is to let go of my good habits. Yeah, it's true when, when you're discouraged, it's very easy to just let go of your good habits. They just don't seem like they make any difference. You, you would say, Well, why do I pray? Nothing changes. Why to read the Bible? It doesn't help me. I go to this small group.
I just get jealous of the lives that other people have that I don't seem to ever have oh, I sing those worship songs, they seem just so weirdly distant from my life. They make me mad. Wow. How dangerous is that? Because one of the things that you need to do is you need to feed yourself on those good truths of God's power and His grace, because the things that you may have been hanging on to now are laid to waste. And so, you need prayer. You need your Bible reading. You need the love of your small group. You need moments of worship and discouragement tells you a lie.
The Lie That Good Things Do Not Help
Discouragement tells you that those things are not worthwhile, that they don't help, they're just a waste of your time. That's a lie. It's a horrible lie. Yeah, it is a world of trouble. It's hard to face trouble. But discouragement is not the necessary fruit of difficulty. Discouragement is the result of meditating on the difficulty you see the battle once again is the battle for the heart. You have to fight for your heart. And know this, you don't fight for your heart alone. The Bible would tell us that Jesus came to give us new hearts. The whole move of His grace is our hearts.
He is with you. He is for you, and your Savior fights for your heart, even when you don't have the sense to don't give way to discouragement. Don't let go. Control of your good habits, your saviors overcome come the world, and he battles on your behalf.
