An optimist and a pessimist were at the coffee shop where the optimist commented, “Isn’t this a wonderful, bright, sunny day?”
The pessimist replied, “Yea, but if it doesn’t stop soon, all the grass, flowers and crops will dry up.
Two days later, it’s raining and the optimist says, “Isn’t this rain wonderful?”
“Well,” says the pessimist, “If it doesn’t stop soon, everything will wash away.”
The next day, the optimist and the pessimist go duck hunting together with the optimist eager to show off his new hunting dog. The pessimist takes one look and the dog and mutters, “Looks like a mutt to me.”
Just then, a flock of ducks flies over. The optimist shoots and a duck falls right into the middle of a lake. He snaps his fingers and his new hunting dog takes off. The dog gets to the lake and without hesitating runs on top of the water, picks up the duck and returns it to his master. The optimist turns to his pessimist friend and says, “What do you think of my dog now?”
The pessimist simply replies, “Dumb dog, he can’t even swim.” (source unknown)
Do you know anybody like that? You can walk on water, and he or she will still find something to complain about. It’s like they’re under a constant cloud, and nothing you do or say will cheer them up.
Jacob, one of the Patriarchs of Israel, was like that for 22 years. Ever since his sons brought him the torn and bloodied coat of Joseph, his favorite son, he was inconsolable. Genesis 37 says, “He refused to be comforted” (Genesis 37:35). Twenty-two years later, he is complaining to his other sons, “Why did you bring this trouble on me” (Genesis 43:6). And when he fears losing another son, he says, “If I am bereaved, I am bereaved” (Genesis 43:14). Jacob, who had once wrestled with God, is just a shell of a man, wasting away under 22 years of doom and gloom.
Then Jacob finds joy again. His broken heart is healed and he once again becomes known as “one who wrestles with God.”
How did it happen for him? And how can it happen for us who sometimes find ourselves in that place of discouragement and despair?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 45, Genesis 45, where we see how Jacob’s depressed spirit was revived after 22 years of misery. We pick up the story in Egypt where Joseph has just revealed himself to his brothers.
Genesis 45:16-24 When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased. Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers, ‘Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.’ “You are also directed to tell them, ‘Do this: Take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come. Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all Egypt will be yours.’ ” So the sons of Israel did this. Joseph gave them carts, as Pharaoh had commanded, and he also gave them provisions for their journey. To each of them he gave new clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes. And this is what he sent to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and other provisions for his journey. Then he sent his brothers away, and as they were leaving he said to them, “Don’t quarrel on the way!” (NIV)
Joseph knew his brothers all too well.
Genesis 45:25-26 So they went up out of Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. They told him, “Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.” Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them. (NIV)
Literally, Jacob’s heart grew numb. He was in shock!
Genesis 45:27 But when they told him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. (NIV)
Literally, the breath of their father lived! For 22 years, Jacob had been a walking zombie, moping around with no reason to live, refusing to be comforted. Now, he is alive again. His breath has returned, and I can almost seeing him kicking up his heels and dancing a jig.
Genesis 45:28 And Israel said, “I’m convinced! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” (NIV)
Notice the name change. He is no longer called “Jacob,” which means supplanter, deceiver. He is Israel again – one who wrestles with God. When God first gave him that name, Jacob had wrestled with the Lord all night and conquered his own tendency to deceive and manipulate people to get what he wanted. Now, he has conquered 22 years of depression.
How did he do it, and how can we do it, as well? How can we overcome our own times of discouragement and despair? Well, Jacob believed the good news he was given, and that’s what we must do if we want to enjoy life again. We must…
BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS WE ARE GIVEN.
We must listen to and accept the positive things in life. We must focus on the good things more than the bad things in life. Proverbs 15:30 says, “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.” And Proverbs 25:25 says, “Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.” Good news brings refreshment and joy. It revives the heart.
There’s an old story of the sales manager who held up a large piece of paper with a small orange spot down in one corner. He says to his salesmen, “What do you see?” And they all reply that they see the orange spot. “That's your weakness as salesmen,” the manager tells them. “You see the spot and don't see all of the open opportunity before you.” (Bruce Thielemann, “Dealing with Discouragement,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 48; www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s like the shoe salesman who went to a new territory and discovered that no one there wore shoes. In his dismay, he wrote to the company and said, “Don’t send any shoes, because no one here wears them.”
Yet, in that same territory, another salesman wrote to the company and said, “Send all the shoes you’ve got; nobody here has any!” (source unknown)
It’s like Harry Truman once said: “A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” (www. brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/h/harrystru161812.html)
Which are you? If you are constantly finding difficulties in your opportunities, then you will be discouraged and depressed all the time. But if you are constantly finding opportunities in your difficulties, then there’s no holding you back.
I like the attitude of this missionary who wrote his supporters from the jungles of New Guinea:
“Man,” he said, “it's great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old Devil's heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement, slander, disease! He doesn't waste time. He hits good and hard when a fellow is hitting him. You can always measure the weight of your blow by the one you get back. When you're on your back with fever and at your last ounce of strength, when some of your converts backslide, when you learn that your most promising inquirers are only fooling, when your mail gets held up and some don't bother to answer your letters, is that the time to put on your mourning suit?
“No Sir! That's the time to pull out the stops and shout hallelujah! The old fellow's getting it in the neck and he's giving it back. And all of heaven is watching over the battlements: ‘Will he stick it out?’ And as they see who is with us, as they see around us the unlimited reserves, the boundless resources, as they see the impossibility of failure with God, how disgusted and sad they must be when we run away. Glory to God! We're not going to run away. We're going to stand.” (John W Yates II, “Overcoming Discouragement,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 42; www.PreachingToday.com)
He was one who made opportunities out of his difficulties.
Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India who suffered neuralgia and was bedridden the last 20 years of her life, put it this way: “Everywhere the perpetual endeavour of the enemy of souls is discouragement. If he can get the soul “under the weather,” he wins. It is not really what we go through that matters, it is what we go under that breaks us. We can bear anything if only we are kept inwardly victorious… If God can make His birds to whistle in drenched and stormy darkness, if He can make His butterflies able to bear up under rain, what can He not do for the heart that trusts Him?” (Amy Carmichael, “Learning of God,” Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 13; www.PreachingToday.com)
The good news is we are on the winning side. Satan has already been defeated. Jesus is the victor, who bruised Satan’s head on the cross and there dealt the fatal blow. I’ve read the end of the story and guess what: we win! So no matter how bad it gets in the meantime, no matter how far behind it seems we are, don’t let it get you down, because we who know Jesus are victors in the end.
Believe the good news, and it will help you battle discouragement. More than that…
BELIEVE GOD’S WORD and it too will help you overcome despair.
Trust in God’s promises. Rely on what God says to you, and you will not be disappointed. That’s what Jacob did.
Genesis 46:1 So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. (NIV)
Now, that word for “sacrifices” is a word in the Hebrew text that was used later to describe the thank offerings of the Israelites. When God did something wonderful for His people in Old Testament times, they would invite all their family, friends and neighbors to go with them to the Temple. There, they would sacrifice a sheep, goat or cow, roast its meat and eat it all together as a thanksgiving meal. Then the one who had been blessed would tell everyone what wonderful thing God did for him or her.
This is the kind of “sacrifices” Israel offered when he reached Beersheba, his boyhood home, on his way to Egypt. He’s thanking God that Joseph is alive!
Yet Beersheba is the place where God had stopped his father, Isaac, many years previously from going down to Egypt during another famine (Genesis 26). Is God going to stop Israel, as well?
Genesis 46:2-4 And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!” “Here I am,” he replied. “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.” (NIV)
I.e., Joseph will be with you when you die. God reassures Israel. He encourages Israel to go to Egypt. He reminds Israel of His promise to make him into a great nation, and He assures Israel that He will go with him. Joseph, his long, lost beloved son, had already invited him to Egypt. The mighty Pharaoh had also personally invited him to Egypt. Now God himself invites Israel to Egypt, so he goes!
Genesis 46:5-7 Then Jacob left Beersheba, and Israel’s sons took their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the carts that Pharaoh had sent to transport him. They also took with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in Canaan, and Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt. He took with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons and his daughters and granddaughters—all his offspring. (NIV)
Verses 8-27 go on to list all the children and grandchildren that went with him to Egypt – 66 people in all! Israel takes them all to Egypt with him, along with all his possessions, simply because he believed God’s Word, and that’s what we must do if we want to overcome discouragement in our own lives. We must believe God’s Word to us.
Just this last April, the Omaha World Herald, a local newspaper in Nebraska, printed a story in honor of the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. It was spring, 1940, and the German army was plowing through France despite help from more than 300,000 British troops.
Eventually, the Germans surrounded and trapped most of the Allied forces at Dunkirk, a town in northern France. It appeared that the Allied army would face annihilation or surrender. Yet with amazing courage, common British citizens managed to organize a flotilla of hundreds of little ships that evacuated most of the Allied forces.
Before the evacuation everything looked utterly hopeless, but that’s when a British officer sent the following message: “BUT IF NOT.” At the time it was a strong message of courage and hope in the midst of trouble. For those who heard it, the message meant that the British would stand defiantly against the Nazis and that God would provide a way through the dark night.
The Omaha World Herald went on to explain the background to the three-word message: “BUT IF NOT” came straight from the King James Bible. As the prophet Daniel and his friends (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) faced the fiery furnace in Daniel chapter 3, they refused to go down in defeat. Instead, they declared their trust in God even if their mission failed. According to Daniel 3:17-18 they said, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known unto you, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (KJV). (Gettner Simmons, “The Words Still Resound,” Omaha World-Herald, 4-24-11; www.PreachingToday.com)
These words encouraged an entire nation in the darkest days of World War II, and these words still encourage people today. These are words straight from the Bible, and they will encourage YOU today and every day if you take the time to read it.
Don’t neglect daily time in the Word, because it really is true: “7 days without the Bible makes one weak” (W.E.A.K.). It makes us weak spiritually and emotionally. In fact, it makes us so weak that we become very susceptible to discouragement and despair.
So if we want to overcome such despair in our daily lives, 1st, we must believe the good news; 2nd, we must believe God’s Word – at least READ it every day; and finally, if we want to overcome discouragement, we must…
BE WITH GOD’S PEOPLE.
We must come together as God’s family. We must spend time with our spiritual family, especially if we’ve been apart for a while.
That’s what Jacob did. He knew his greatest joy when he was finally reunited with his son after being apart for 22 years.
Genesis 46:28-30 Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.” (NIV)
Israel was content with his life now that he had seen his son, and that’s what happens to us when we are reunited with people in the Family. We are content with life again, and the discouragement disappears. In fact, we actually live longer if we get together with our spiritual family on a regular basis.
Several years ago, Gregg Easterbrook reported in The New Republic that those who practice their faith “have above-average longevity, fewer strokes, less heart disease, less clinical depression, better immune-system function, lower blood pressure, and fewer anxiety attacks, and they are much less likely to commit suicide than the population at large. These findings come from secular medical schools and schools of public health…
Easterbrook also quoted Dr. Harold Koenig of the Duke University Medical center, who calculated in his studies that “lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to 40 years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day…”
Another study, conducted mainly by researchers at the University of Texas, found that those who regularly attended worship services lived an average of seven years longer than those who never attended. (Gregg Easterbrook, The New Republic, July 19 & 26, 1999, p.20; www.PreachingToday.com)
In other words, “Go to church! It’s good for you.”
One Sunday morning, two men were out hunting for deer, but after several hours without taking a single shot, one of them says to the other, “You know, we probably should have stayed home and gone to church this morning.”
The other man replies, “Well, I could have stayed home, but I couldn't have gone to church.”
“Why's that?” asks his friend.
“My wife is sick,” the hunter answers. (Greg Huffer, Lebanon, Indiana, www.PreachingToday.com)
We can always find excuses to stay away from church, but that won’t help us in the end.
Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Do you want to find the encouragement to keep on going? Do you want the strength to persevere even during these difficult days before the Day Jesus comes again? Then don’t give up meeting together with God’s people in God’s family, called the church.
If we want to overcome discouragement and despair, then we must believe the good news, believe God’s Word, and be with God’s people on a regular basis.
I once read that the Devil was having a yard sale, and all of his tools were marked with different prices. They were a fiendish lot. There was hatred, jealously, deceit, lying, pride – all at expensive prices. But over to the side of the yard on display was a tool more obviously worn than any of the other tools. It was also the most costly. The tool was labeled, “DISCOURAGEMENT.”
When questioned, the Devil said, “It's more useful to me than any other tool. When I can't bring down my victims with any of the rest of these tools, I use discouragement, because so few people realize that it belongs to me.” (John Yates, “An Attitude of Gratitude,” Preaching Today, Tape No.110; www.Preaching Today.com)
Please, don’t let Satan use that tool on you. Beat him back with a working, practicing faith today. Remember, “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.”
