30 Days of Hope: Day 13 - Get Your Courage Back

I was reading a blog post the other day, and the writer talked about (as a passing point) NEVER being discouraged. When I read the note, I thought to myself, "How? How do you avoid discouragement?"

Discouragement drains you, pulls you away from the Father, causes your heart to be troubled, gives you immense pain & suffering. You feel like a big lump of nothing instead of a vital part of the world with great purpose.

I have experienced all of these feelings more than once.

So how do you overcome discouragement? How do you live a lifestyle of hope? If you one day feel discouraged, should you give up, feeling that you have failed? Well, I would like to share my thoughts on this as I continue to write on hope (the opposite of discouragement, by the way) over the next couple of weeks.

So for today....

1 Samuel 30:6
And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.

You can read the beginning of chapter 30 to get an idea of what David was going through, but the gist is this. While David and his men were away, many of the women and children including 2 of his own wives were kidnapped and now the whole city blamed him. HE WAS HAVING A BAD DAY!

How did David encourage himself? IN THE LORD

What does that mean exactly? Well, this is what I think, sometimes you just have to "remind" yourself WHO God is -- the nature of God. Why do you have to remind yourself? Because we are people AND we forget! The situation doesn't always change right away or as quickly as we would like it to, but when our hope is in HIM, we can find courage there.

Then there are other times, when even though we know the answers, we STILL feel discouraged. What do we do then? Let's check out David again.....

1 Samuel 23:15-18
Now David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh, and encouraged him in God. Thus he said to him, "Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father will not find you, and you will be king over Israel and I will be next to you; and Saul my father knows that also." So the two of them made a covenant before the LORD; and David stayed at Horesh while Jonathan went to his house.

David knew that God had anointed him to be king one day, but it must have seemed difficult and that it was NEVER going to happen since the current king kept trying to kill him. David needed his best friend.

We need each other. We need to remind each other of the promises and the plans that God has for us. We need to speak words of life that we see in each other.

When you have lost your courage because of LIFE,

1) Enourage yourself in the Lord (Remind yourself of WHO God is)
2) Surround yourself with friends/family who HELP remind you of God's precious promises