Episode 105

Disciple Up #105
Dealing with Discouragement
By Louie Marsh, 4-24-2019

Everyone gets discouraged sometimes.

Job felt discouraged with his wife and friends.

1  Then Job answered and said: 2  “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. 3  Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer? 4  I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you. 5  I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain. 6  “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me? 7  Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company. Job 16:1-7 (ESV)

Elijah became discouraged with life’s circumstances & himself.

4  But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 1 Kings 19:4 (ESV)

Jeremiah felt angry and discouraged with God

1  I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; 2  he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3  surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. 4  He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; 5  he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6  he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. 7  He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; 8  though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9  he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. 10  He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; 11  he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12  he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. 13  He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; 14  I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. 15  He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. Lamentations 3:1-15 (ESV)

Peter felt discouraged with himself, his theology & God.

69  Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70  But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71  And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72  And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73  After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74  Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75  And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. Matthew 26:69-75 (ESV)

21  But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Luke 24:21 (ESV)

How to Deal with Discouragement

 Check Yourself

  • Check My Ego
  • Check my physical condition
  • Check my relationship with God
  • Check my relationships with others
  • Reconfirm or reorient and then reengage and get going!

 Please Get In Touch!

Email – louie@discipleup.org

 


Check out the Disciple Up Facebook page:

My books –