Fight like there is no tomorrow

After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! (Numbers 13:25-28)

The moment we let our eyes 'see' as only we can see is the moment the odds against us might seem a little too great to handle. We need to begin to see life through God's eyes, but how do we do that in the face of such great odds against us? There will always be circumstances that seem to be out of our control, beyond our natural means of handling or muddling through. When we only focus on the issue, we begin to feel a heaviness in our spirit that literally weighs us down. We soon lose any 'umph' to move forward when that weight becomes so heavy, don't we? We feel like we might as well give up, but that only serves to make us more and more vulnerable to the attack of the enemy in our lives. We open ourselves up to temptation at that point, giving into what seems easiest because the other choice seems way too hard.

Have you ever noticed that when you are experiencing deep discouragement, you are not open to God? You seem to trust anything or anyone other than him. It isn't because we don't know his promises, or have previously experienced his goodness and grace, it is just that we don't 'feel' like God is going to come through for us. One thing I have discovered in those discouraging moments is that no amount of 'positive words' will break us free from the fear that comes when deep discouragement grips our hearts, minds, and very soul. We are almost paralyzed right where we are. Why is that? We took our eyes off of Jesus and put them on the problem. We are rehearsing that problem a thousand different ways. Our focus determines our course.

So much energy is wasted on discouraging thoughts, isn't it? We have to remember that discouragement is really a well-oiled, frequently used tactic of our enemy, Satan. He puts out all this stuff that looks so overwhelmingly hard just so we can lose focus. In fact, he loves to use those things that we might label 'bigger than life' to bring us down a few notches. Once he has us there, he knows we are 'game' to continue down that path to a full-fledged melt-down. It is what people in religious circles call 'oppression'. We counteract oppression with a 'rehearsal' of a different kind. We rehearse God's promises, get into the Word of God, and times of worship. There we find God's touch that will recenter our focus. Remember this - faith is a fight. It isn't a passive thing at all. We need to fight even when all the odds seem like they are stacked against us, trusting that the one who fights for us is bigger and stronger than any of those 'giants' in our path. Just sayin!

Not a discouraging word

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. (Ephesians 1:3-6)

There are times when we 'judge' someone over and over again, all because they have a whole bunch of 'do-overs' in their lives. We point out how many times they slip and fall, but God sees only the returns! He is celebrating each and every 'do-over' because he knows that individual is not content to backslide, nor are they content to just 'abide' where they are - they want to change. It is hard to change, and he knows that. He relishes every one of those times we call out to him with a new commitment to 'do-over' life's decisions. He also gives us much grace to move beyond those moments!

Discouraging things happen and they are always trying to pull us down, hold us back, or keep us focused on something that wasn't the right choice. That is Satan's tactic, not God's. God isn't going to guilt us - he is going to encourage us, even when discouragement abounds. We have a new 'position' - we are in Christ. As followers of Christ, that means God's love is always there in our lives - he isn't going to quit on us. Satan's greatest hope is that we will cave under the weight of discouragement. Don't give him the satisfaction!

There are two responses to discouragement - we can either cave under its weight, or we can be driven closer to God. God gives us great blessings, but we might feel unworthy of them right now. He gives us great privilege, but we don't want to 'impose' upon those privileges because we feel too dirty, haggard, and sin-riddled right now. God sees the heart - he knows the actions we have engaged in are not what our heart truly desires. He knows that 'in Christ Jesus' we were made new and that we desire that newness of life to reign supreme in our lives. 

So, press into his grace and goodness, not your guilt. He is waiting to restore, you just need to ask. Trust him more than you are trusting those discouraging words your enemy is hurling at you right now. They are truth! Just sayin!

Crying the blues, are ya?

The blues - ya singing 'em?  We all have a time here and there when we just get into the "mulligrubs" - the place where we are kind of ill-tempered, grumpy, or just plain grouchy.  Our circumstances have been internalized and we are allowing them to affect the attitude we display about everything we touch in life.  Melancholy is not meant to be a way of life for a believer, but we sometimes find this path kind of worn smooth by our frequent passage over it, huh?  Sometimes our "souls" just need a good talking to - they need to hear clearly they are not where they need to be!  There is a song I remember from grade school - about the old gray mare not being what she used to be.  Now, if we were given to singing the blues now and again, we might just bemoan the fact the "old mare" or "old stallion" isn't what s/he used to be!  Physically we age and the aging process is sometimes less than kind to us!  On the other hand, I think we sometimes stay mentally, spiritually, and emotionally immature - never giving ourselves the chance to experience the growth God intends for us.  Instead, we choose to bemoan the fact our growth never seems to come.  We get downright melancholy in the process.  As I have said before - nothing good comes to those who just bemoan their losses, or dwell on their past.  We have to be outward focused if we are to overcome the mulligrubs.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  (Psalm 42:11 NIV)

Discouragement can be a deterrent, can it not?  It gets into our bones and even slows us down.  Our shoulders begin to slump, our muscles seem heavy, and even our breathing seems to be labored.  If discouragement affects us too deeply, we will just stall out - or crash land!  The truth is - none of us can live ABOVE discouragement at all times.  It is a natural part of dealing with life's stressors, the emotional roller-coasters we ride, and the affects of all kinds of forces we don't see, but certainly feel.  What is worse - not all problems we face are "fixable" by us!  We might want to get them fixed, but guess what - we don't possess the ability, or perhaps they are not our problems to fix in the first place.  If you have ever tried to fix a problem you don't own, you know the extreme frustration that causes you - usually because you are also trying to fix someone else in the process!  If you don't possess the ability to fix the problem, you might be a little reticent to ask for assistance to get it done - simply because pride, fear, or mistrust gets in the way.

So, we live with our discouragement as well as we can, not because we want to, but because we don't know the way out!  Sometimes the answers to what is giving us problems is not always going to be readily known.  We often need to ask for advice - to get instruction.  Here's the rub - we don't always know how to ask for help, nor do we believe anyone else will be able to help us.  In short, we deal with discouragement because our pride gets in the way of us asking God to help us out of the pit, or to take the hand of the one God has provided to actually give us a means of climbing out of the pit with their help. God wants us to "partner" with him and often someone else he puts in our path in order to rise above the discouragement.  He doesn't plan for us to dwell in the rut!

God gives us a certain amount of mental abilities - the ability to reason, make choices, run equations, etc.  This mental ability often is what we turn to when we are facing discouraging times - we attempt to "calculate" our way out.  I like watching some of the survival shows on occasion - not because I would want to do them, but because I see how their minds work in order to "calculate" their best opportunities for making it through what they are exposed to in the midst of harsh and punishing conditions.  The mind is made to "calculate the odds" and "run the scenarios" - it functions much like a computer.  The problem comes when we just "run the scenarios" and forget to enter God into the equation!  Discouraging times often get us to the point of only seeing the walls of the rut - forgetting to look up to the light just above those walls!

If you take only one thing away from today's study, here it is:  God wants us to be changed right where we are.  Discouragement would get us to focus on what we could have been, or what we should have done.  God wants us to focus on what he can do in the midst of where we are right now.  Why? Truthfully, it is because where we are is the only place we can grow!  A seed cannot grow where it is not planted - it grows exactly where it is planted!  If we are in the rut, then the opportunity for our growth comes IN the rut, not because we somehow find a way out of it.  You don't overcome discouragement by some mystical power from within - you allow the place you are planted to become a stepping stone for your growth - because you allow it to be attended to by the best one for the job - God himself.

Discouragement takes our focus off of God and gets it on ourselves.  It has us turned inward.  The things we see when we only gaze inward lead us to even deeper despair, for we don't possess what we need in order to get beyond the walls of self-pity, pride, or fear.  In looking upward (outward), we see not only the walls, but we begin to see the path which lead us into the rut.  We don't retrace the path "in" to find the way "out".  We look for God to provide a new path!  It is usually in front of us, not behind.  It is above us, not below.  We look for the messiness of life to change around us - God looks for it to change within us.  It is this change which begins to release us from the pit of discouragement we have come to call home!  Just sayin!