Finding our way through the wilderness

Joshua 1:9

New International Version (NIV)

⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Day Twenty-Two

Discouragement

   We all become discourage at some point of our lives. Rather it is because we are not where we want to be or we are not getting the results out of something that we had hope for. When we become discourage we become less motivated, less confident, and less optimistic. The poise, enthusiasm, and hope seems to be drain from us, our thoughts become pessimistic and we start to believe that we will fail before we even try.

   Sometimes there our people in our lives that try and discourage us, telling us that we will not succeed in our endeavors. They tell us that we are wasting our time and that we should give up at the risk of us becoming a failure. Sometimes we can hear this so much that it forces us to start to second guess ourselves, which in turn can lead to discouragement.

   Discouragement in our everyday lives can start to bleed over into our spiritual lives as well. When we are discouraged we start to ask if God is still with us. We start to pray less because we think that He has turned a deaf ear to our request. We stop reading and studying the word, and if we continue to we do so halfheartedly, we turn our back on His word because we think that He has turned His back on us. Thus we began to separate ourselves from God leaving ourselves more accessible for the enemy’s certain attacks.

   So the question becomes how do we stop ourselves from being discourage?

   Unfortunately the answer is that we cannot stop ourselves from being discourage, for it is a human emotion and it will rear its ugly head from time to time in our lives. However, what we can do is defeat discouragement before it can defeat us and we do this by staying in the Word!

   In our text from above God is ministering to Joshua. Moses had just had just passed away and God had now commissioned Joshua as the leader of the Israelites. Add onto that he, Joshua, was going to be the one to lead the people into their Promised Land. You can only imagine the pressure that Joshua felt, having not only take over Moses, the man who had led them out of bondage in Egypt and the man who had been the leader for almost forty years, but also he had the task of leading the people of Israel to conquer a foreign land. I can only think that Joshua was discouraged when he thought about the task at hand. This is why God spoke to him and said, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”  

   The Lord our God is saying the same thing to us whenever we are discouraged. He is telling us that no matter what He is always right there by our side, through the setbacks, through the failures, and through the missteps He is right there. There is no need to be afraid or discourage because He has everything in control.

Psalms 37:23-26 says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the lord upholds him with His hand. God knows all of our dreams and desires and He wants us to succeed, what we need to realize is that our steps are ordered by the Lord and there is no fail in the God. So matter what the present looks like we know that we will succeed!

   In the word we see that this is a true statement.  If we read 2 Chronicles chapter 2 we would find another testimony of how God can work through us despite our discouragement. We find a king name Jehoshaphat who is about to go to war against two nations with vast armies. He has all of his people fast and pray to God for help because he knows without God’s help they would be annihilated. If we stop right here for a moment we can learn a great deal from the king. To overcome the feeling of defeat or discouragement we must first acknowledge the fact that the only way we can succeed is with God’s help. We can’t do it on our own.

   So all of the people gathered together with the king and stood before the Lord in pray. Then the Spirit of the Lord came on a man named Jahaziel and began to speak through him. The Lord told the king and all of the people not to be afraid or discouraged because of the vast army. For the battle is not theirs, but God’s. Go out and face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.

   So whatever it is that has us discourage, know that there is no need to be. Because just has God told King Jehoshaphat and his people, the battle is not our, but it is God’s and He will be victorious. So we can go out and face whatever may come tomorrow because we know that the Lord our God will be with us!

   Please join us Monday as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless