Jan 1st 10 Posted by Natalie Nichols in Overcoming Adversity, Personal Account

5 Steps to Overcome Discouragement This Year

God began my first day of the year in an unusual but significant way. For a couple of weeks I’ve needed to pull journals from a decade ago in order to locate the date of a particular event. I woke in the middle of the night last night and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I’d finally get the task over with and dig out my old journals. My life is apparently pretty boring because I soon fell back asleep before perusing much of their contents. New Year’s Day grew busy and I didn’t get a chance to return to the journals until the very last thing of the day.

The more I read, the more blessed I became by the Holy Spirit’s choice of days. Out of all the days and weeks I had been putting off this task, He chose the first day of the year—a year that is starting amid many challenging, even discouraging, circumstances. Why this day? The answer, I don’t believe, is just for me.

The One Who Called You Is Faithful

You see, in my “New Life Journal”, my journal of “firsts,” I saw that in March of 1999 I sat up in the wheelchair and sang to my grandmother in the nursing home for an hour before I grew tired. That same week—of March 17—I briefly walked around the yard and was strong enough afterward to listen to music (sound sensitivity and lack of energy to tolerate the complexity of music had banished this love from my life). On April 8, I filled up the birdbath, climbed stairs and heated up my lunch. That was huge at the time! Enormous!! Especially considering that when I began physical therapy the year before, I could only be elevated seven inches from the waist up, and for only five minutes a day.

On April 13, I was able to shop—for the first time in years—for a pair of shoes. I was still in the wheelchair for the most part, but managed to walk in the store and try on shoes. May 6^th I rode home in the front seat of the car (not lying down in the bed of the back seat) and spent three entire hours out of the house. June 13^th I ministered at a church—shared my testimony sitting in a regular chair (not the wheelchair) and sang a song while standing. July 9th I went swimming for the ‘first’ time with my brother Ed and his family.

As you can tell, these aren’t earth shattering accomplishments…not for most people. But knowing they fall under the category of “firsts” gives them quite a different context.

Described on the pages was everything from the day I first washed and dried my hair to the day I was strong enough to pick up my three year old nephew when he ran to me calling, “Aunt Gracie! Aunt Gracie!”

I wrote about my first trip to the grocery store…and the first time I wrote a check and struggled to remember how.  I was shocked at how prices increased during the eight years in which I hadn’t purchased anything. Things had changed dramatically!  Before I went into

‘exile,’ there were no peel and stick stamps…or pay at the pump gas stations…or cell phones. (Fortunately, I had a borrowed cell phone before gassing up for the first time—because I ended up having to call a life line!)

Chronicled in detail were moments with my family, meals I ate sitting up, trips to the movie theater and things I was finally able to do for others.  The pages contain everything from the mundane—pages and pages of errands and the time period I was able to be “active” that day—to the extraordinary: a trip to Disneyland! There were times of one-on-one ministry and ministry events, which began local and small scale and grew to include trips…and my first airline flight post-‘exile’ all by myself.

Page after page contain many words and noted “firsts” but just one message for me today:

“The one who calls you is faithful
and he will do it.”
1 Thessalonians 5:24

God has been faithful in the past and will be just as faithful now.

Beloved, I believe God wants to whisper this same promise to you today. Perhaps you don’t have journals that outline God’s history with you in black and white, but it’s there. Oh how I pray God will take you through a journal of “firsts” in your memory today—of things He promised you…and delivered. Of new life given. Of miracles He’s worked, no matter how small or incremental they might have seemed at the time. Things to which you might have become so accustomed today that they have become a way of life, easily taken for granted.

There is a reason to deliberately call to mind instances of God’s faithfulness. Like David recalling His God-given victory over the lion and the bear, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to remind us of what God has done for us in the past…so that we can believe Him to come through in our future.

Are you overwhelmed by challenging, even discouraging, circumstances? Are you stressed over uncertain outcomes? Are you or your loved ones facing seemingly hopeless obstacles? Cheer up! Jesus Christ has overcome this world of trouble—He has done it for you in the past, and He will do it for you again.

When David recounted to Saul His deliverance from the lion and the bear, an even greater victory lay ahead—one that brought God even greater glory and directly impacted the lives of others. It was so astounding that people wrote songs about it:

“Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (I Samuel 18:7).

The threatening, seemingly hopeless, insurmountable obstacle you’re facing will result in an even greater victory, impacting not only your life but the lives of others. It will bring such glory to God that people will be astounded and recount it to others.

Five Steps to Overcoming Discouragement

As we enter this year, I want to share with you five things God spoke to me tonight:

1. Be confident.

Be confident of this: that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). It may seem like things are falling apart, but God is going to finish what He started. He is!

2. Expect God to make good on His promise.

“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Nu.23:19).

What personal promises has God given you for your future? Expect Him to fulfill them and do what He said He would do.

“I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please…What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do“ (Is. 46:10-11, emphasis added. Each “I will” is a promise.).

3. Don’t fret over the baby steps.

The increments of my health improvements were tiny…and took years…and are still taking years. But as I read the chronicles of my baby steps (some of which were literal), I was reminded how God delights Himself in the details of our lives. He is working in the tiny increments of each day—in ways we would never perceive as God, let alone our answer, our miracle.

“The steps of a good man are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. If they fall it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with his hand” (Psalm 37:23 TLB). The Amplified Bible says that God “busies Himself with his every step.”

God is busying Himself with your every step—with every second of your life and mine. Not a moment—not a detail—is outside His control, beyond His plan or void of His miracle working power. I don’t know about you, but I needed to be reminded of this today.

You and I can echo David’s confident words in Psalm 62:

“With God rests my salvation and my glory” (v.7, emphasis added).

God sees your way out of this overwhelming, seemingly hopeless, circumstance. Your salvation and your glory rest with Him. He is not fretting or worrying over the solution to your problem, the answer to your need. He is not wringing His hands; and neither should you. He sees you in the future, answer in hand!

Beloved, in the days in which I writhed in anguish, confined to bed, enduring mental torture so severe I resembled an animal more than a human being (for three years! plus seven years in bed and ten in the wheelchair)–God saw me sitting here today, writing to you and perusing journals about my “salvation” from the captivity. While I worried over how I would ever improve and what treatment held promise, He knew my way out. He saw me here today and was never worried or uptight.

Your salvation from this predicament–your loved one’s deliverance from a seeming path of no return–rests with God. He sees your way out. He sees your loved one’s restoration. There is no need to fret, worry or finagle. Rest in His promise.

4. Be at rest.

May the Holy Spirit put to rest your anxieties and banish your fears. God has been good to you in years past, and this year will be no exception.

“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:7-9).

5. Expect Him.

“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord” (Psalm 27:15, AMP).

Yes, my brother and sister in Christ, “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it” (2 Thess. 5:24).

Expect Him this year! At the end of the year, we will be able to chronicle little miracles in the details–and answers to prayer that will still take us by surprise even though we expected Him this year. He will be faithful! He is faithful and working in the details right now!!

Questions:

• What is in your journal of “firsts”? What things has God promised you—and delivered? What is on your list of new life given, of miracles God has worked—no matter how small or incremental they might have seemed at the time? They may be things to which you’ve become so accustomed today that they have become a way of life, easily taken for granted.
• What are the lions and bears that God has defeated in your life? Recall, like David, the victories and deliverances God has given you. What has God done for you in the past? You can believe Him to come through in your future!
• Are you overwhelmed by challenging, even discouraging, circumstances? Are you stressed over uncertain outcomes? Are you or your loved ones facing seemingly hopeless obstacles? Jesus Christ has overcome this world of trouble—He has done it for you in the past, and He will do it for you again.
• Do you believe that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6)? Will you commit to be confident in this truth? It may seem like things are falling apart, but God is going to finish what He started!
• What personal promises has God given you from His word? Are you expecting God to do what He promised?
• What baby steps are you having to take? What goal are you having to move torturously incrementally toward? Has the slow pace caused you to want to give up and quit? Are you fretting the baby steps or resting confidently in God’s wise plan?
• Is your soul at rest, expecting God to to be faithful to you again, just as He has been in the past? 
  

 

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• Waging War With Your Promise
• Waiting Expectantly: Praying in Hope When Times Seem Hopeless
• A Reason to Give Thanks, Even in Hard Times
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