All of us get discouraged from time to time. It doesn’t matter how mature we are as believers or how long we have been a Christian. I don’t think I need to rehash all of the excruciating details we have had to endure this past year. We all know what they are and have been.
One of the greatest examples we have in the Bible of someone who was discouraged is Jeremiah the “Weeping” prophet. Jeremiah experienced many of the same things we are experiencing today in America. He watched as his beloved country and city went down the tubes.
In Lamentations 3, of which Jeremiah is the author, he spends the first 20 verses remembering all of his afflictions. He even blames them all on God Himself. Ever have days like that when you felt like God Himself was against you? I do. I believe we all do.
But there came a turning point in Jeremiah’s perspective. It came in verse 21 when he stopped reminding himself of all his troubles and reminded himself of the faithfulness of God!
He said, “This I recall to my mind [I remembered]; therefore I have hope!”
Jeremiah went from saying “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord” (v.18) to “The Lord is my portion; therefore will I hope in Him” (v.24).
He went on to say that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord (v. 26).
Remember when the Children of Israel left Egypt? They were headed straight for Mt. Sinai when God had them turn and go down to the Red Sea to a dead end? In their minds they must have thought that God was leading them to the slaughter! Certainly the Egyptian army will catch up with them and destroy them all! In Exodus 14:13, Moses told the people, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will shew to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever!”
Don’t focus on the evil and the evil people in the world. God will deal with them very soon. He wants us to be still, quietly wait for Him, and we will see the salvation of the Lord very soon!
And after He says, “Come up hither!” like the children of Israel by the Red Sea, as for the devil and all his cohorts, we shall see them no more forever!
Feel like all hope is gone today? Remind yourself of the faithfulness of God, and you will find your hope renewed.
God Bless,
Until we all meet in the clouds with Jesus!
Mike Damron