An Asterisk For Discouragement

“The saints and people of God have no true reason for their discouragements, whatever their condition be” –William Bridge

I wholeheartedly agree with that William Bridge quote…provided that I get to add an asterisk. And after this asterisk I like to put the words “except for mine”. You see, I agree in principle with what Bridge is saying. It’s really great advice for you and all of the stuff that you are dealing with. But it’s not totally true for me.

You see, I’m unique.

I am entitled to discouragement and sorrow. If you knew some of the things that I have been through you would understand that I am exempt from commands like “rejoice in the Lord always”. Discouragement is the only fitting response to the situations that I find myself in. It would be inhuman for me to not be discouraged.

I’m wondering if you want to claim an exemption too.

You’ve worked your tail off at your present job. You have given this company everything; long hours that you should have spent with your family, holidays working, not to mention the toll it takes on you physically and emotionally. When the possibility for a promotion comes around you are certain that the job will be yours.

It’s not.

You’ve been passed over. Some younger, less qualified, less dedicated guy gets the promotion. So you give up. You aren’t going to work as hard anymore and you send your resume to a rival company. You’re ticked off at God too. You had prayed for this—hardcore sweating and pleading type of praying—but apparently to no avail. You spiral into depression, discouragement, bitterness, and a host of other nasty words.

Do you get an asterisk?

What Discouragement Really Is

According to Bridge, we ought not be discouraged because we “have possession and interest in God Himself”. If you are a believer then you are in union with Jesus Christ. Discouragement is actually saying that God is not enough. It’s not simply a result of fatigue, circumstances, or having a bad frame. Those might be things that make discouragement an easy temptation to succumb to, but they are not the cause of despair; idolatry is.

In reality our discouragement is stupid and faithless. Discouragement is to wail over broken cisterns that we do not need. To have Christ is to have everything that we need.

Stop telling yourself that your suffering is unique and more significant than the redemption of Christ. You and I do not have a license to be discouraged. No matter how deep in the pit you descend, the Lord Jesus has sank further and redeemed it(see here).

Thankfully, Jesus even rescues and redeems those like you and I that have faithless episodes of discouragement. May we live out that redemption and stop pretending like that isn’t better than any other news you’ll receive today.

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That William Bridge quote is from his book A Lifting Up for the Downcast, which is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone battling depression or discouragement.

Hope in the Shadowlands

Discouragers go about among men, and, by their gloomy, pessimistic words—they make life incalculably harder for them. They put out the lamps of cheer and hope which shine in men’s homes. They quench the very stars that burn in the sky above men’s heads. They take the gladness out of hearts. They see only the dark shadows of life, never the sunshine; and they prate wherever they go of gloom and doom. They never bring us a message of cheer. We are never stronger, braver, happier, or truer—for meeting them. –J.R. Miller, 1896

If you want to be Mr. Discourager you have plenty of material to work with.

We do, after all, live in what C.S. Lewis dubbed the Shadowlands. It is here that “the sun is always shining somewhere else. Round a bend in the road. Over the bough of a hill.” When you live in the Shadowlands it doesn’t take a work of grace to point out all of the dark shadows.

Grace sees beyond the shadow. Grace gives birth to hope. And hope sets its eye on the sunshine that is just over the horizon.

I want to be the guy that tells everyone, with a gleam in my eye, “Take heart, the sun is rising!” What value is there in pointing out dark shadows in a land of shadows? Nobody needs that preacher. What men and women need—what my own soul needs—is to be captivated by the hope of another land where the sun is always shining.

Take heart friends…we’ve only seen the cover and the title page. Some day we will “at last [begin] Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read:  which goes on forever:  in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Joy in the Midst of Hope Deferred

Have you ever had a really brilliant idea that was followed with enthusiasm and passion and almost overwhelming hope at the prospect of how much this new idea would further kingdom of Christ?  You absolutely knew that this was God’s will for your life.  He had given you this vision.  He has called and equipped you to accomplish this task. 

And then.

You fell flat on your face with your dream crashing on top of you. 

I imagine that is a little what Samuel Rutherford must have felt like.  In 1627 at the ripe old age of 27 Rutherford saw his dreams come true as he found a place for that fire within his bones to expend itself.  He had become the pastor at Anwoth, which was a rural parish where this new minister could give his heart to. 

Shortly after his arrival to Anwoth, though, the Rutherford family was hit by sadness.  His wife fell ill, suffered for a year, and then died in their new home.  This was followed up by the untimely death of two of his children as well.  To top it all off in 1636 Rutherford found himself in prison.  He wrote a book defending Calvinism against the Arminian church authorities.  They 1-starred his book on Amazon and sent him off to exile where he found himself in prison for nonconformity. 

It’s not difficult to understand how Rutherford could say:

At my first coming here [to prison] I sulked at Christ and would, indeed, summon him for unkindness.  I sought a plea of my Lord and was tossed with challenges whether he loved me or not, and disputed over again all that he had done to me, because his word was a fire shut up in my bowels, and I was weary with forbearing, because I said I was cast out of the Lord’s inheritance. 

With everything that he was going through Rutherford, as we too would be tempted towards, began questioning the Lord’s love for him.  He even wondered if this imprisonment was a sign to him that he was no longer useful in ministry and worse yet if he was shut out of the Lord’s inheritance. 

Then time passed.

Nothing changed in his circumstances.  Only his heart and his experience of Christ.  Rutherford would say of his questioning the Lord’s goodness, “I know see that I was a fool.  My Lord overlooked all and did bear with my foolish jealousies, and overlooked that ever I wronged his love”.  He would even, later, refer to his prison as “a palace”.  Through this suffering time Rutherford was met with great comfort from Christ. He even wished that all of Scotland and Ireland could have his experience:

O if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast!  And yet I get not my meat but with many strokes.

May we come to find, with Rutherford, that the sweetest experiences of the Lord’s grace is seldom on the mountain top while we are living out our dreams.  Instead it is often when our face is flat on the ground and our hopes feel as a burden on our back mocking our demise that we come to see that Christ is more precious than anything else.  We would rather have Jesus than even living out the dreams of serving the kingdom. 

Hope in the Midst of A Really Long Bath of Tears

    I hear, and my body trembles;
        my lips quiver at the sound;
    rottenness enters into my bones;
        my legs tremble beneath me.
    Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
        to come upon people who invade us.
(Habakkuk 3:16 ESV)

I’ve noted in the past my continuing frustration with the northside McDonald’s in Jasper.  It doesn’t seem to matter if I order something as easily accessible as sliced apples they always make me pull forward and wait an eternal three minutes.  It is a great injustice to my American sensibilities and Mc-expectations that I must wait over 5 minutes to get food. 

Then I read Habakkuk 3:16 and gloss over it without feeling the weight of that last sentence, “Yet I will wait for the day of trouble…”  Allow me to put that into perspective.  More than likely the absolute latest that Habakkuk penned these words was 609 B.C.  A few years later in 605 the beginning of the Jewish turmoil from the hands of the Babylonians took place.  It wasn’t until 586 that they were finally taken into an exile that would last until 538.  The Babylonians themselves were not given their day of trouble until 539 by the hands of the Persians.

That means that from the time of Habakkuk 3:16 until the Babylonians had their day of trouble in 539 a whopping 66 years had passed.  Sixty-six years is a long time.  

Sixty-six years ago it was 1945. 

• This was the final year of World War II.  At the beginning of 1945 Adolf Hitler was still alive.  FDR was still President.
• The kiss pictured to the right was on VJ Day sixty-six years ago.  Though the identity of the couple is debated we know the subjects are either in their 90’s or their grave. 
• Bob Marley, Pete Townshend (of Who fame), Walt Frazier, Peter Gammons, Neil Young, and Bette Midler were all born.
• Though few were buying them because of the war, a new car was 800 bucks and a gallon of gas was about 18 cents.
• The color barrier in baseball would not be broken for another two years
• This was the last year the Chicago Cubs would make the World Series
• The Cleveland Rams won the NFL Championship
• The top movie in 1945 was The Bells of St. Mary’s (never heard of it)
• The top song in 1945 was Rum & Coca-Cola by the Andrews Sisters

Now let’s think back to 1945 and consider the words of Habakkuk.  God has promised that in the discipline of His covenant people He would also bring justice upon the Babylonians.  But this period of discipline is going to be rough.  For the next sixty-six years Habakkuk will only see the Babylonians in power.  They are blood-thirsty tyrants and will not go lightly on the Habakkuk’s people.  He’s not just being dramatic when he says that body and legs are trembling and that rottenness enters his bones. 

Sixty-six years (or up until his death) Habakkuk would wait quietly trusting in the Lord’s goodness.  This helps us to also put the more famous verses in Habakkuk 3 into perspective:

    Though the fig tree should not blossom,
        nor fruit be on the vines,
    the produce of the olive fail
        and the fields yield no food,
    the flock be cut off from the fold
        and there be no herd in the stalls,
    yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
        I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
(Habakkuk 3:17-18 ESV)

That’s sixty-six years of no blossom, vines, olives, food, flock, and herds.  Certainly not every moment was a bath of tears.  Yet suffering would be the pervasive theme for the rest of Habakkuk’s life.  Everything would now be tainted and viewed through the grid of suffering. 

Now do you see the audacity of “yet I will rejoice in the LORD”?  That is a big YET.  That’s not “even though I have to wait for 5 minutes at McDonalds I will still trust in the Lord”.  That is saying “even though I endure sixty-six years of pain and suffering I will rejoice and find joy in God alone.”

As I think about Habakkuk I do not feel sorry for him.  I feel sorry for us.  Habakkuk was drinking deeply from the fountain of joy and delight because his heart had nothing else to find delight in.  Not us.  We have plenty to distract us and bide for our attention and affection. 

The question for us today is whether or not we will believe like Habakkuk that lasting joy is found not in maximal comfort in this life but in staking our claim on that which is to come.  Will we quietly wait and tremble before the God of both justice and redemption to make all things right?  Or will we kick against Him as He destroys our mock comfort of “here” and replaces it with the lasting joy of eternity?

A Prayer God is Answering In My Life Right Now

Though I prefer my wife’s performance of the song, I’ll have to post Bethany Dillon’s performance:

Lyrics:

The Calmer of the sea
Here in this room with me
So gently welcoming
The weakest things in me
You are the blood over
The door of my heart
What pain You spared me from
How could I know it all?

Oh wonderful love, You died for me
The power of Your life is in me
Father, let Your light shine down on me
Father, let Your light shine down on me
No matter what the day or night may bring
Father, let Your light shine down on me

Oh Jesus, You became what was my deepest shame
That at Your very name
My calloused heart would change
How could You, oh perfect One
Love me, when I have done nothing that's worthy of
My freedom You have won

Oh wonderful love, You died for me
The power of Your life is in me
Father, let Your light shine down on me
Father, let Your light shine down on me
No matter what the day or night may bring
Father, let Your light shine down on me

Open up the heavens
Poor down Your Spirit
Home me God
Jesus, wherever You lead
I'll sing harmony
Hold me God

Father, let Your light shine down on me
Father, let Your light shine down on me
No matter what the day or night may bring
Father, let Your light shine down on me