Discouragement creeps up on the best of us. It’s lurking in the corners of a promotion. It’s hiding in the shadows of being passed over. It’s slinking through the bends of an unknown future. It’s ever-present, but it is not all-powerful. It’s all around us, but it is what defines us.
What is this thing we call discouragement?
A basic definition for this word is to lose heart.
A practical way to think about it is by watching America’s team, the Cowboys. Season after season, we watch “them Cowboys,” and, bless their hearts, they let us down again and again. Well, perhaps discouragement isn’t like watching the Cowboys, but at least we can say it is similar.
What’s a biblical way to process this emotion we all face at some point in time?
A good example is the Old Testament prophet Elijah.
In 1 Kings 18, he prevailed over the prophets of Baal as God miraculously acted on his behalf. To everyone’s incredible bewilderment, fire came down from heaven and consumed his water-logged altar.
Previously, he had prayed, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again” (1 Kings 18:37). A simple prayer that the people might know God. And God responds.
Following God’s supernatural act, the people “…fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God’” (1 Kings 18:39b).
A direct and immediate answer to prayer! Glory!
But the story doesn’t end there. Immediately after this demonstration of power, Elijah flees to the wilderness in fear for his life after he hears that Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, threatened his life by saying, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time” (1 Kings 19:2b).
One day he, with a strong heart, faces the prophets of Baal; the next day, he loses heart and runs for his life.
What happened?
Elijah was suffering from what many of us suffer from today—misunderstood usefulness.
Notice Elijah’s exchange with God. He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).
Elijah is focusing on the “incredible things” “he” has “done” for the Lord.
God response? Show him incredible things (1) by rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks, (2) an earthquake, (3) a fire, and finally (4) a gentle blowing.
From the gentle whisper is where God speaks to Elijah. It wasn’t the magnificent manifestations but the everyday simplicity of a still, small voice.
Elijah needed to understand that his usefulness to God was not bound up in what he did for God but in his nearness to God.
To this point, Oswald Chambers says, “The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.”1
The application?
- Don’t confuse busyness in good things for linear growth in grace.
- Don’t replace knowing God with doing things for God.
- May we say with the apostle Paul:
- “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service…” (1 Timothy 1:12)