For as long as I could remember, I was taught to always have faith in God. Having faith in God is how we develop and sustain our relationship with Him. It is how we glorify Him. It’s also how we access His promises over our life. We can all agree that faith is important – and quite honestly – when we don’t have faith in God it can be offensive to Him. Without faith it is impossible to please God – that’s what the scripture says (Hebrews 11:6). It makes sense. Imagine you have a child you love so much and they don’t trust that every move you make is in their best interest. God always wants us to believe in Him.
God always wants us to have faith. I think that should always be the goal – to one day get to a point where we don’t even flinch at the adversity. Unfortunately, for every human being that has ever lived, there has been a time where we had to deal with discouragement. This is when you lose enthusiasm or confidence over a situation. Most of my life I thought that if I ever FELT discouraged, that I was not having faith in God and that I was in the wrong. It made me feel bad about myself, and I would have self-deprecating thoughts about how I wasn’t strong enough in my spirit to never lose faith in God. However, this thought has recently been challenged. And I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned about discouragement and why it is not a problem for us to ever FEEL it.
I emphasize FEEL for a reason. Because in life we FEEL many things – like, everyday. Sometimes, if not most of the time, we have no control over what we feel. Even if we are living a perfect life in the spirit, we must remember that we are still living in this flesh – therefore we FEEL. Jesus FELT discouragement. He lost enthusiasm about dying on the cross as the hour approached that he would be taken into custody (Matthew 26: 36-42). So did Jesus sin? Of course He didn’t. He just felt heaviness and sorrow. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. He FELT discouraged – similar to how we feel when we face a daunting task. But here is the key component to the story….
When Jesus FELT discouragement, He fought it back. He got on His knees and He enquired with God. And in the end, He carried on with His mission and died on the cross for all of our sins, and rose again 3 days later. Jesus FELT discouragement, but fought. When facing discouragement there are 2 things you can do: yield to it, or fight it.
You see, we don’t always have a choice about how we feel, but we always have a choice about what we do about how we feel. We are accountable for what we do AFTER we FEEL it – not for FEELING it. Once I realized this, I realized where the true focus is supposed to be. My focus isn’t to get to a point in life where I never FEEL discouragement. It’s to get to a point in life where I am constantly fighting discouragement and coming out on top.
Discouragement is a feeling that you can either give-in to, or fight. These are your choices. One will leave you with a failed mission while the other will bring glory to God. Never get mad at yourself for feeling discouraged, just keep fighting and I promise you, you will not lose. You can only lose by yielding.
