Episode 105 – Disciple Up

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