Discouragement

So let me talk about now what I was going to talk about today. You notice how we come back from the feast, and we're sort of excited, and it was a great feast. And of course, we're living in a lifestyle that's not normal for us, you know, in these temporary dwellings.

It could be anywhere from, you know, I've stayed in tents, pop tents, to, like this year, we were in this beautiful place. You know, just a fabulous place. Everything in between. And we go there, and we get these messages every day, and this fellowship every day. It's just such an intense experience. We come home, and we get back in the routine. And you know, it doesn't take long. Usually a week, two, three weeks, and people, you know, hey, how you doing?

Those actually talked about the Bible, as are, by the way, almost every other emotion you can come up with. And we all suffer from discouragement from time to time. And basically, discouragement is how we express it, how we feel it is, we just lack the energy to keep going.

Just emotionally, physically, spiritually, we just, it's like why even try? It is different than sadness. It's different than depression. It can cause depression. Sometimes it's hard to even find out in human beings why they're depressed. I mean, we can have a physical reason for being depressed. Discouragement, we can't get discouraged because of illness, but discouragement is rooted in very specific happenings in our lives.

And just the word itself tells us a lot about what it really means. The prefix, DIS, D-I-S, literally means in English, without. Discouragement means without courage. It is to be without courage. Basically, discouragement is a feeling that the results aren't worth the effort. It's a feeling of giving up, and at its core, it's a sense of defeat. I am defeated here. Why even try? One of our kids used to say, I can't remember what, I think it was Jennifer used to always, when something didn't go her way, she's, Oh, what's the use?

Just what's the use? Why even try? Okay, that's discouragement. Why even try? I'm defeated here, so I don't have the courage because I'm going to lose anyways. We suffer discouragement because we just get to the place where it's just, this just seems too hard, and I'm going to fail anyways. I'm just going to fail. So I'm defeated. I give up. We all suffer discouragement. Why should I? Nothing ever works out anyway. I'm going to fail anyway. And this is common. I just had a long email just passing forth back emails with a number of people in the last couple weeks. Not even, not from our church area here, but from other church areas where people suffering from discouragement.

Why should I even try? I know I will fail because nothing works out. We're going to look at discouragement today because we're all going to suffer defeats. We're all going to suffer struggles. We're all going to suffer failures in our own lives. Every one of us fail at times. Sometimes it's somebody else's fault, sometimes it's just plain our fault, right? We all suffer failures. We all sin, which is a great failure. And when we're caught in these struggles, when we're caught in these defeats, when we're caught in what other people do to us, so we feel like, why?

Everybody's going to hold me down. Why should I try? When we get into this discouragement, we don't have the courage to go on. That's what it means. There's just no courage left, and there's no energy. So we're going to look at some causes of discouragement. We're going to look at results of discouragement, and then we're going to look at what the Bible says about dealing with discouragement, when you just...why even go on?

Some of the causes of discouragement. It is complex, so this is going to cover every cause, but it gives us something to think about. A major cause of discouragement is discouragement can be brought about by disappointing circumstances, illness, or feelings of failure. Disappointing circumstances, illness, or feelings of failure. Why even try? You know, I've eaten good all my life. I've exercised all my life.

Who knew I would have this health problem? So why even try?

Sometimes we can be a very courageous person and face all the problems of life, and everybody says, wow, that person never gets down. And one day it just sort of piles up and piles up, and one day it's like, I give up. And everybody's like, why did you give up?

Because it takes a toll on us. These feelings of failure, these feelings of why struggle.

You know, you try so hard to please your husband. You try so hard to be a good wife, and you go on and on and on. And it's like he never notices. And one day you just say, I give up. I'm defeated. I can't do this anymore. He doesn't care. And you truly feel, you don't have the courage to go on. You know, other people say, oh, come on, just snap out of it. And that doesn't help. If the courage that there isn't there, you can't go on. You're without the ability to go on. And you're just sort of listless about it. You're just sort of numb.

And discouragement leads us to a sense of numbness. You work long hours. You do a good job, and everybody else seems to get the better pay, and everybody else seems to get the promotions. And pretty soon, you just don't do your job very well. You just don't have the energy to do it? Why try? It doesn't matter anyways. No one cares. You know, you could be this way about, you know, you're a young person, and here you are. You just want to have some happiness in life, and want things to work out. And it seems like maybe keeping the Sabbath holds you back all the time. Just hold you back. And everybody else seems to be having more fun, and everybody else seems to be doing better than you are. And pretty soon it's like, why try? Why should I even try?

I'm just defeated here. A second reason is discouragement arises out of a lack of goals and personal growth. You know, when you're doing well, think about when you're in school, and you have a subject you really like, and it comes easy, and you get that, you know, 100% on that test, because you know this stuff. And you're, you know, there's an excitement about it. You like doing it. And then you go to algebra. That was the hard one for me. Now some people, algebra is the easy one. Algebra was hard for me because I couldn't figure out why. A plus B equals C.

I don't care. Now when they start to fill in concrete things like one apple plus two apples, one apple plus one apple, two apples, ah! Concrete, I understand. It took me a while to get into the abstract. It's all logic. It took me a while to understand because I kept trying to put things in there, you know, not numbers, but things. So I struggled and struggled with it. And I got discouraged. Why even try? I'm too stupid to do this. I'm just too stupid to do algebra.

So I convinced myself I was. So I was discouraged all the time. I hated algebra. I'd like to go back and take it now. I'd probably like it. I hated it. And I was discouraged all the time. I'd go into class, put a knot in my stomach, doing the homework, made me angry, right? I hated it. I was discouraged. I didn't have the courage to do it. Why even try? So we don't have any personal growth, and he goes. You know, if a teacher would have said that and said, look, let's just figure this much out. Huh. Just this. Figure this out. Here's the goal. And when I would reach that goal, I would have said, oh, let me try some mouse. But when we look at this big, big problem we have, we lack the courage to tackle the whole problem. It's too big. And we don't feel like we're growing. We don't feel like we're accomplishing anything. Why is there a future? You know, that comes very hard for people as we get older. That's why you still need to work in the garden. You still need to do stuff around the house. You still need to plan. You know, okay, you can't do what you used to do, but you still need to plan to do things. You still need to accomplish. Or you get discouraged. Why get out of bed in the morning? It doesn't mean it's easy to do these things. But at the same time, we have to believe that we're growing. We have to believe that we're accomplishing something in life. And you know, this is really true when it comes to our sins.

You know, sometimes you can have a sin you've struggled with. Maybe it's anger, or envy, or jealousy, or some alcohol abuse. We all have all these sins we struggle with. And maybe it's a sin you've struggled with for 25 years. And so you say, what's the use? Why even try? God doesn't care anymore. We come to the conclusion we believe God doesn't care anymore because I haven't overcome this particular sin, or I still struggle with my temper, or whatever it is that we're struggling with. And so we get discouraged. Why even try? A third reason, and this one's interesting, is we get discouraged because we lock ourselves into this mindset of constant worry.

You sort of get obsessed with worst-case scenarios all the time.

So you see, every situation is worst-case scenario. And so you worry, and you worry, and you're all, this is going to happen. I know it's going to happen. Eight people have the flu. I'm going to get the flu. Right? I did that actually this week. Kim was sick in bed. I went to sleep in the other bed. I thought, well, I'm going to go in here so I won't catch it. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a little bit of a sore throat. Well, now all I needed was rest. But I'm like laying there thinking, oh no, I'm going to be in bed for a week. God, please don't let me be. So I'm praying, you know. I got up. I gargled with whiskey. I took ham. That's the only thing I had. I took handfuls of oregano oil capsules and vitamin C and I'm drinking juice and water for like two hours. Finally, I lay down on the couch and fall asleep.

I've been up half the night. Fortunately, I didn't have any appointments that morning. And Kim comes in at 10 o'clock in the morning. Why are you laying on the couch? Are you ever going to get up? I got up and said, I feel great. Well, no wonder. The problem was I wasn't getting sleep. I convinced myself I was going to be sick. I was going to end up being sick.

So why even try? I'm just going to be sick. I'm just going to lay here and get sick. And sometimes your body will respond by getting sick. So we can worry ourselves into this total discouragement. Why even try? Now, what are some of the results of discouragement in our lives? Well, the main thing it does is it actually saps us of physical, emotional, spiritual energy. We're just listless. It's just, oh, I got to get up and go to work. Man, it's going to be a bad day.

See, it's a sense of defeat. It's a sense of defeat. I can't fight anymore.

So I just go to the slaughter. That's how we approach life.

Prolonged discouragement leaves literally giving up. Now, that's where it can become depression. Prolonged discouragement becomes depression because you physically begin to respond to it. You actually chemically begin to respond to it and what do you get out of it?

So, discouragement can lead to actual depression. But that's why discouragement has to be dealt with before it gets there. Before you give up when you feel like giving up. Because you know what happens when you're discouraged? You just sort of half-heartedly do things and you don't even enjoy the things you used to enjoy. Go. You sabotage relationships. You sabotage at work. That's not going to work out anyways. I read one time, it was a big pop band back in the 70s and 80s, and they were on top of the charts and they were making lots of money and they needed a new guitar player. And this guitar player came in, played for them, and they were all like, wow, he's really good. And he said, well, I knew that I wasn't good enough and you wouldn't want me anyway, so goodbye. And he left. So he didn't become part of the band. And the band members all said, actually, we were going to vote on it and later realized we all were going to make him part of the band. But he convinced himself, I'm a failure. Okay, I was here, I did it, see ya. And he went out of failure. Success was right there, at least what he was going to measure as success. Which leads us to other aspects of discouragement. Discouragement is so strange in that you need courage. So what you do is that seeking courage, you become self-centered. We pull inward. So what happens is we actually damage the relationships of the people who can help us. This is why it's a self-fulfilling prophecy after a while. Oh, why even try? Why even try?

I mean, I've sat down with counseling with people some days. Well, I was going to call you, but why? I knew you wouldn't care. I knew that there was nothing you could do for me. I knew I was a lost cause. Well, wait a minute. Let's step back here. Let's look at what the real issue is, and let's try to figure out how you can get better and how you can get God in your life and how you can make progress. Oh, why? Why should I? The discouragement is just so deep because we feel doomed. We feel hopeless. And when you feel doomed and hopeless, you don't have the ability to reach out in love towards others. So what happens is in discouragement, we get more and more inward and it becomes more and more damaging. And the one thing that discouragement can do that we're not aware of, we don't think of this in terms of discouragement, is that we can get to the place. We say, what's the use? Who cares? We actually turn that on God. Look at Numbers 21. Numbers 21.

We always go back to ancient Israel because they're such a perfect example of what human beings do. But they, you know, so many times, they did it as a group. We forget these are individuals, what they're experiencing. Verse 1, we have to pick up here what God has just done for these people.

The king of Arod, the king and I who dwelled in the south, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Etherem, and he fought against Israel and took some of the prisoners. So Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver these people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them in their cities. So it says the name of the place was called Hormon.

So they went and said, look, these people are bothering us, and we need to go out against them, we need to deal with this problem, and if you're with us, we're going to do this. And God said, okay, and he was with them. Now this is important. They just had the courage, the march into battle, because God was with them. And they had this courage.

Then they journeyed from Mount Hohr by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. Now it's interesting, the Hebrew word there that's translated as discouraged can also mean impatient, and that tells us something about losing our courage. Sometimes we lose our courage because we want and desire immediate results, immediate response, immediate help from God.

And whenever that stops, we become discouraged. They had just seen God deliver this Canaanite army to them. Now they're marched on and they start to get discouraged. All we do is march and march and march. When are we going to get to the Promised Land? You know what? I don't think we're ever going to get there. I'm just going to sit down here in the desert and die, because what's the use? We're never going to make it.

So they just lose their desire to move on.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.

God was giving them food every day. It's not like God wasn't there.

They were getting miraculous food every day on the way to the Promised Land, manna. And their answer is, we're so discouraged. Why go on? We're just going to sit here in the desert and die, because this food just isn't that good. I mean, it's tasty for the first, like, six weeks, but it's just not that good. We're tired of this. We really want some good food.

Now, they're not starving. They're not going hungry. Whatever food God is giving them, believe me, it has all the nutrition they need. So they feel pretty good. But they're discouraged. Discouragement leads to...it's just irrational, because it's an emotional response.

And it's an emotional response based in fear.

Remember, it's without courage. At the core of discouragement is fear. Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear that God isn't going to respond immediately in the way that we want.

And because of this fear, we lose faith in God. They lost faith in God. They became discouraged. Well, the truth is, without God, we're doomed to failure. Without God, we're all doomed to failure.

So once again, it becomes self-fulfilling. We pull away from God because we're discouraged. Why even try? God doesn't care for me. And we pull away from God, and the only one that can help us in our discouragement, we pull away from. And now we're even more discouraged. We're lost in this discouragement. So how do we deal with discouragement? What can we do to actually deal with discouragement when we're faced with it? We're going to talk about a few points here. First of all, and this was so obvious, but the problem with emotional issues is we don't see the obvious.

We're in the middle of it. We don't see the obvious. And the obvious is when you are discouraged, when you are without courage, seek God to give you courage. When you are without courage, seek God to give you courage. He doesn't promise to protect us from everything. What He does is He promises to get us through it. Now part of getting through what we deal with all the time is the courage to get through it. And we have to go ask Him for that courage. We have to go ask Him, say, you have to give me something I don't have. This is an interesting psalm here in Psalm 56.

Once again, you'll see David deal with these deep emotional issues all the time. Psalm 56. Verse 3, now you will see David over and over again talk about, write about in his Psalms, the terror of being in battle. Now he was a mighty warrior, but he went into battle with fear. He went into battle knowing he could die if God didn't protect him. And he says, whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. What he realized is I can't work up the courage to do what God wants me to do.

I have to trust in God. I have to ask God to give me the courage. Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, I will praise His word. In God, I have put my trust. I will not fear what can flesh do to me? What can anyone do to me as long as I am in God's hands?

David even saw death if God allowed him to die was a positive thing because he believed in a resurrection. Now that's a hard place to get to. But we see where he sought his courage from God. He didn't hide and pretend that he was just a courageous man who never had fear.

He faced his fears. He publicly talked about his fears. He wrote them down and then said, but I get my courage from God. That's where it comes from. Remember, courage isn't a lack of fear.

It's doing the right thing even though you are afraid. It's having the energy to do the right thing even if you are afraid.

People face with violence sometimes, we have moments where they have no fear at all.

Then afterwards they fall apart when they think about it. There's a stress that happens afterwards. There's people who have remarkable physical strength and courage in a violent situation.

This happens with soldiers all the time.

The next time they are in the same situation, they fall apart.

Because of the stress of what they are going through.

Now there are some people who just don't seem to have any fear.

But most of us struggle with our fears. We suffer with discouragement. We just lack at times the energy to move forward. So we have to get that energy from God. It's interesting Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations. We don't read Lamentations much because if you do you will get depressed.

What it is, he just witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

What he saw was horrendous because God had told him, I will protect you. I am going to destroy this nation. I will protect you. So Jeremiah lived right there and watched it happen. Let's go to Lamentations.

And even though God is protecting him, even though he wasn't taken captive, even though he wasn't killed, he suddenly just runs out of courage here. He just runs out of the energy to go on. But I want to look in chapter 2 verse 20 because I just want to show you some of the things that he witnessed.

Say Lamentations. Chapter 2 verse 20.

See, O Lord, and consider, to whom have you done this? Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priests and prophets be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? Young and old lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered and not pitied. Just realize what he's describing, what he had witnessed. He had watched Judah, the Babylonian army come in and just kill them. He says the bodies are piled up in the streets. The starvation was horrible. The kings, I mean the priests that served you were killed right there in Solomon's temple. No wonder he's so. How does he have the courage to go on?

Look what he says in chapter 3 verse 1.

I am the man who was seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

He says I've seen what happens when God takes His protection away from a people.

He says I witnessed it. I walk through it. It happened around me. Now he's in Judah, and there's only a handful of survivors. The Babylonians have left. It is a burned city with the streets full of bodies. Think about that. Think about what, there's people he knew that are dead. Others are gone. What happened to them? He doesn't know. They're taken away off into Babylon. He says, He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light.

Shirley has turned his hand against me time and time again throughout the day.

This is what he feels like. He says he's aged my flesh. I feel like an old man. See what I've seen. He says he has aged my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. He has sent me in dark places like the dead of long ago. He says, you know what? I'm like a walking dead man here.

There's nothing left. I'm defeated, God. You defeated them. You let me live. But I am defeated. There's nothing left. I'm a walking dead man. I'm old before my time.

What purpose do I have to live? Why should I go on? Down to this verse 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.

Okay, so he started to get a little bit of hope in the future. One of the things we have to do to overcome discouragement is we have to believe that God has a future for us. Tomorrow or the day after or the week after, the month after, the years after, whatever. He has a future for us. This is part of a plan. His hand is involved. So we submit to that and we have faith in that. He says, you know, but there is hope because I recall to mind. So what did he recall to mind?

Verse 22, through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassion fails not.

He said, you know, I walk around through this city and there are still people here.

He was there. Baruch was there. His family was there. Why were they there? Because God told him, I will take care of you. Even in what you see, this horror that you're going to go through, I will take care of you. And he said, you know, I have hope. God said he would take care of us, and he did. He says, they are new every morning. Every day, my life has value. There's a reason for me to get up tomorrow morning, even though I've got to move out of Jerusalem. You can't live in this burned out place. He said, I've got to leave it. But there's a reason for me to get up every morning, because great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I hope in Him. God is enough, and there are times when that's all there is. Now we want things in our lives. People, experiences, you know, comforts, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there are times when all there is is God. And Jeremiah said, that's my portion. This is enough. Today, God is enough. Today, God's enough, because God will help me get... Tomorrow morning, I'll get up, because God's enough. He got His courage from God, and He gave him a hope in the future.

I mean, the devastation that He had just witnessed. You know, He must have felt guilty. You read through there, He actually feels bad because He survived.

Everybody's dead or taken into captivity, but me and my family and a few people that followed God. And it's like, but maybe I should have just died with everybody. And He said, no, no, no, no. God said, I have a purpose for you, and you, I am with you.

I'll give a sermon someday on Baruch. I love Baruch, who was his scribe. There was a point where God said, go tell Baruch to stop trying to fix everything, that wherever he goes, I will be with him. And that's enough. So I'm trying to fix everything. Just wherever he goes, I'm with him. And that's enough. And Jeremiah had to come to the point where I have no courage left, but I have God. I have God, and God is enough.

There are times in your life you're going to have to face that. We all do. There's times in our life where we face God's enough. That's all I got today. And tomorrow, I get out of bed.

Tomorrow, I get out of bed. Tomorrow, I go forward. That's why Christ, Paul says that I can do all things through Christ, which raises me. Where does it come from? I can do all things because Christ comes to me. He is in me.

And therefore, I can do it. We keep trying to do this on our own. And you lose courage after a while because it's too big. This is too hard, but God will help us through. Remember, Christ knows what it's like to face fear and discouragement. You can see it when you read the Gospels.

He knows what it's like to feel that way. So he says, I can understand. I can come and understand, but I can show you how I'll give you the strength to get through it. Another thing we have to do, once we realize we have to seek God's courage, is get control of your daily life by setting goals. Start with little goals. We're going to talk about, in a minute, an example of a person who set little goals and how it changed fear in her life. But you set little goals. And sometimes they're silly things to other people, but they're what you want to accomplish. And you get a sense of accomplishment. Remember as a child, when you brushed your teeth and you got the little star?

Yeah! And you liked it when the stars started to add up.

There's a sense of accomplishment. And pretty soon you want to move forward. And in this, then, and the third point is, because I'm going to come back to the setting goals in a minute, but don't allow others' negativity to discourage you. Don't allow other people's negativity to discourage you. The last thing a discouraged person needs is another discouraged person. In the military, they always fear when one person panics. You know why? People have never panicked in their lives. Start to panic. It's spread. And discouragement is spread.

You ever try to help a discouraged person need to say all these positive things? And pretty soon, they just stay there and stay there pretty soon. You're like, I agree with you. You know, everything's bad. I don't care. Let's just give up. I mean, pretty soon you're giving up.

Because it's such a powerful emotion to be without courage. We can't let other people drag us down.

There's an interesting story. You know, once again in Deuteronomy, let's go back to ancient Israel. Deuteronomy 1. There's New Testament examples. I just pulled these because they were such obvious examples. Deuteronomy 1. They're about to go into the Promised Land. God tells Moses to tell him certain things. And he says, remember 40 years ago, you were in this exact same place. And of course, at this point, all the older people had died. These were all the children. These were the people who were the children and teenagers. And it's 40 years later.

And he says, remember, all the older generations died. Why? Because they were in this exact same place and something happened to them. Remember, they sent the 12 spies in. And 10 of the spies came back and said, no, we're afraid. It's a wonderful place, but you can't go in there. We will all die. Verse 26, Nevertheless, you would not go up but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. And you complained in your tents and said, because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.

Where could we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, the people are greater and taller than we, the cities are great and fortified up to heaven.

Moreover, we have seen the sons of Enochim there.

The 10 spies discouraged them so much. Now notice what happened. They hated God. God did this to us. God destroyed Pharaoh. God took us through the Red Sea. God fed us manna every day for 40 years. The pillar of fire was there by night and by cloud for 40 years every day. All the older people died. He gave us water when there was no water. He destroyed all the people who came up against us, Canaanites and Amorites and Moabites and Vegemites.

He destroyed all these people. Yes, the Australians were there.

And now they say He hates us. You know why He did all that? Because these people are big and they're going to kill us. He did all that to bring us to a group of big people, and the big people are going to kill us. He hates us. When discouragement reaches a certain level, we believe God, because we're so defeated, God must hate me. God can't forgive me. God won't forgive me in my sin. He can't. God can't love me. He can't. He hates me. This is the way we begin to feel, which is the opposite of where we're supposed to be. And it was all because their brethren, the ten spies, discouraged them. And this is a different word translated in Hebrew, discouraged. This literally means melted away.

They melted us away. We were like, you know, we were like bronze. And they came along and we just melted. We just became a puddle. There was nothing left. There was no courage left because of what they told us. And he says, don't do that this time, because I'm going to take you in there, God says. And God's told them, I'm going to win this one for you. And they had to trust God.

We can't let others melt us away. There are times you can't help a person who's also discouraged. You have to go to people who aren't discouraged to get help. And he said, well, that person's easy help too, but you can't help them if you're both discouraged.

Remember, you can never pull a person out of the pit. If you get in the pit with them, you can't. Now you're just two people in a pit. To help somebody out of the pit, you've got to get strong enough to reach down and help them out of the pit.

So don't let other people discourage us to the point. And I've done that. I've let people discourage me so much, God doesn't care. I'm defeated. I give up.

What's God have to do? He's saying, wait a minute. That was them, not me.

A fourth thing we have to do then, since discouragement is faced in fear, you and I have to learn to face whatever it is that has defeated us. We have to face our failures. We all have failed. We have failed God. We failed ourselves. We failed other people. We've all failed. We have to face our failures and move on. David faced Goliath once. It's almost the face to him a thousand times. You wonder how many nights he woke up in the middle of the night saying, if I would have just stood up to him. How many times he woke up in the middle of the night having nightmares? Because he could hear Goliath yelling, come on Saul! Are you afraid? And he's in his tent saying, yes. David faced the fear. It's not that David didn't have fear. Sometimes it's hard for men to admit that we have fear. We all have fear. We have to face them. Sometimes it's not easy.

We all have fears. I said about setting goals. This is something that happened years ago. I don't remember the woman's name. I'm not telling you all the details. It was a counseling, but it's not something that... This is general. I mean, this has happened many times. But I remember this one time specifically. My wife and I went to visit her. This is probably 30 years ago.

She was in a house that was dark. She just talked in very hushed tones. She wanted to come to church, but she was overwhelmed with a merideth phobias of fears. She was so discouraged that she would not leave her house. She would not leave the house because bad things could happen.

So we talked about faith. We talked about... I mean, we didn't talk about doctrines. We didn't talk about difficult scriptures. We talked about faith. We talked about trusting God. We talked about letting God help her through this. And do you really want to come to church? Yes, because she said, it's the Sabbath. I'm commanded to go to church. So, okay. So there's something I want you to do for the next week. Every day, the next week, every day, every morning...

forget, we may even set a specific time. You have to get out of your house, walk out, get in your car, shut the door, start the engine, turn it off, go back in the house. Can you do that for seven days? Yes. The second week, she had to get in the car and drive it. She drove like around the block or whatever it was. Every week, she had to do something more. The third week, she had to drive it to... I forget what it was, a McDonald's or something that was down. She had to drive it, park the car, get out of the car, go inside, buy something to drink, sit down. She didn't have to drink it. She just had to buy it and sit there. And then get up, get back in the car and drive home. And she had to pray. She prayed the whole time she did this because of this fear.

Fourth week, she showed up at church.

One step at a time. It wasn't easy. God had to help her every step of the way.

But she showed up at church after the fourth week.

Phobias are hard to deal with. You know, if you've ever had claustrophobia or...

What is the fear of cats? There's the actual phobia of fear of cats. I don't call that a phobia. I think it's a good thing. But anyways, actually it's the hate of cats that I think it's a good thing. No, I don't hate cats.

But I still remember this because she prayed and she did it. She had to face it. She had to take action. She had to step out and take action. And every day was so hard for a month.

And then one day, it was Sabbath. She got in a car, drove, set out in a parking lot, was scared to death because there's all those people, and I don't know any of them, and she walked in.

That was a lot of prayer.

But she overcame it.

You know, as he said, well, what's wrong with that woman? See, I don't see that at all because everybody has fears and phobias. What I look at as, wow, she let God help her overcome it.

That means we have to take action when we're discouraged. Now, when you're discouraged, you become intake action.

Yes. First, you're a patient, and then you take action.

Exodus 14.

Exodus 14. Our last scripture here.

And this is when ancient Israel is standing before the Red Sea, and they're all... it's a mob. They are discouraged. They are frightened. Here comes the Egyptians behind them. There's mountains on two sides and a sea on the other. They're going to die. They're going to be destroyed. Their children are going to be dragged back into slavery. They have no way out, no help. They don't know what to do. And so they're just running around. I mean, this has become an absolute scene of panic with millions of people. And Moses said to the people, do not be afraid.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians who you see today shall see again no more. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. So he said, stop and stand still. So the mob stops.

They have to be patient. Now, if that's all there was to this story, you know, were they to stand there three days? Five days? Stop! Stop the panic. Let's turn to God.

Let's get God involved in this. And I love what God says to Him next.

And the Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.

Okay, you got them settled down. What are you going to do with them now, Moses? Moses is just praying and crying out and crying out. And he says, hey, okay, you got everybody stopped. You got everybody right. Now let's move. And he said, stretch out your hands and watch what I can do. And he stretched out his hands and the red sea opened. Now they still had to go through it. And that had to be a frightening experience.

They had to walk through that. That had to be absolutely frightening. So they had to stand still to see what God was going to do. Now sometimes you don't know what God's going to do for a long period of time. And that's why discouragement settles in. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And then when he does, God says, move. And we have to move. Just like the woman had to get in her car.

She had to drive around the block. She knew what God wanted.

So she patiently waited. This is what God wants. I don't know how long it took her months to figure out, no, this is what God wants. He wants me to go to church. I don't know how. I'm too afraid.

And then it was okay. You waited patiently. God has opened the door. Now you have to walk through it. And she did. And she did as well did. They walked through. You know, we don't give them credit for that. But I love this. Stand still! And then God finally says to Moses, why are you still standing still? It's time to move. Stretch out your arms and let's do this.

So remember, we stand still. That's part of dealing with discouragement by seeking God and His help. Once He gives it to us, we've got to walk through the Red Sea.

We have to do whatever He wants us to do. And that over, because of the courage He gives us, we then are no longer discouraged, even though we still feel fear. We still feel the fear.

We just deal with it now because God's with us.

Discouragement can be a real destructive force in our lives. It keeps us back from being...really, it holds back our relationships. It robs us of happiness and productivity. And it keeps us from growing spiritually. We just don't have the courage to go on. Here's a little secret. Don't expect every day to be perfect. Don't expect yourself to be perfect, because you can't be yet. You just can't be. You just keep trying. Every day is going to be imperfect. Every person in your life is going to be imperfect.

Sometimes we have these demands. We're all discouraged because nobody's perfect. That's right. I'm not perfect. I'm discouraged. I'm not perfect. We're not.

Failure is part of life. You're going to fall down so hard sometimes you think someone ran you over with a truck. That's what happens. And sometimes you look at yourself and say, why did I fail? Because it wasn't your fault. And sometimes you're laying flat on the ground saying, that was really stupid. Right?

And God says, get up. That's not what we think. I'm discouraged. God doesn't want any more. I'll just lay here until another truck runs me over. Right? And God says, get up. Now God looked at you, you know, God's looked at me many times and I know he said, hey, so that was stupid. Yeah.

Get up. You know, get up. Now let's go. Get courage from God and move forward.

We can't live our lives always in fear of the failures because they're going to happen.

As we grow, we'll have less of them that are our fault.

It doesn't mean you want to have failures in somebody else's life. And remember this. You have a high priest in heaven, Jesus Christ, who has sinned. According to the book of Hebrews, it says, is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He's touched with the emotions. God the Father's touched with our emotions. He understands discouragement. He understands. Not that the Father's never experienced discouragement. Christ never experienced it until we have a human being. Then He experienced it. He doesn't experience it now.

He doesn't get discouraged now, but He knows what it's like.

There's this infinity we have because He knows what it's like. And He wants to help us, and He will stand beside us. And He, God, will give us courage in the face of difficulties. And what He does, we will become like Jeremiah, where he suddenly realized, it's good to get out of the bed in the morning. I can get out of bed in the morning because there's always hope in the future because it's God who creates that future.