“David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6).
How do you handle discouragement? The dictionary defines the word as “that which causes one to weaken!” Frankly, defining that word is somewhat of a waste of space. Who doesn’t know the reality and the power of discouragement? It’s how you handle it that makes the difference. That’s what you need to know.
Among the files I inherited from my father-in-law, Guy Duffield, who spent 70 years in ministry, is an unpublished, mimeographed survey of seven Christian leaders, all of whom were well known in the 50s and 60s. Each was asked how he handled discouragement.
One of the seven wrote, “Discouragement is foreign to me.” OK, I suspect he didn’t understand the question. Otherwise, the researcher should really have made a case study of this man. I have yet to meet an honest individual who, at times, would not candidly admit to facing periods of discouragement.
Another said that when he is discouraged, he prays and expects a miracle. The man who said this is now quite elderly, fighting poor health and failing eyesight. I’m not sure his solution is terribly practical.
But what did surprise me was that one of the seven who responded admitted to chronic and ongoing bouts of discouragement and deep depression. “My emotional range,” he said, “is wider than that of most people with whom I am acquainted. This means that I can probably go higher spiritually than a lot of people and I also have deep depression that I hope most individuals are not called upon to endure. In other words, floodtide brings in ebb tide. Ebb tide brings low tide.”
What surprised me, reading this honest and candid confession, was that I knew this man for forty years and saw a positive, dynamic, energetic leader who seemed to exude confidence! Never would I have thought that this man dreams dark thoughts and battles the demons of darkness.
How did he face the day when discouragement was oppressing him? “The only way, the Scriptural way, and the victorious way that I have learned to handle discouragement or depression (or whatever you care to name it),” he wrote, “is to walk by faith.” He told how in times of darkness, he would turn to the pages of Scripture and fall back on the certain promises of Christ, “I will never leave you or forsake you” and “Lo, I am with you always!”
When a publisher asked me to write about my favorite verse in the Bible, I was baffled. There are hundreds of promises that are meaningful to me. For two months I pondered and evaluated, and then wrote about the two verses that this man fell back on—something he took by faith no matter whether he was on the mountain top or the deepest part of the dark valley. He had learned to do what C. S. Lewis advised: tell your emotions where to get off.
Six of the seven, excluding the one who didn’t admit to ever being discouraged, said that they repeatedly fell back on the promises of God’s Word which gave them strength to press on and not quit.
The opposite of discouragement is what? Encouragement! Our English word encourage comes from a French word that means “in your heart.” That’s the seat of life itself. In closing may I remind you of the time when David, a shepherd boy destined to become king, was tired and discouraged. Rebuffed by the enemy, David’s own men were in revolt and even talked of killing him. But he didn’t retreat, run, or quit. Says the record, “David encouraged himself in the LORD his God” (1 Samuel 30:6, KJV). That is the ultimate, never failing solution.
Resource reading: 1 Samuel 30:1-20
