What To Do When You Get Discouraged

Twenty minutes after four,on the Lord's Day, February 6, 1870, Mary died. “I fell on my knees and thanked God for her release, and for having taken her to Himself, and asked the Lord to help and support us.” He recalled later how he strengthened himself during these hours. And here we see the key to his life.

‘The last portion of scripture which I read to my precious wife was this: “The Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Now, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have received grace, we are partakers of grace, and to all such he will give glory also. I said to myself, with regard to the latter part, “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”—I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ; and I do not live in sin, I walk uprightly before God. Therefore, if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again; sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God. And all this springs, as I have often said before, from taking God at his word, believing what he says.” - By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

F. Believing that God’s will is best for us means that we trust God: believing that he is omniscient and that what commands us to do or what he sends our way is for our own good.

G. 1 Peter 4:19 (Paraphrased) “if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right, and commit your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.”

IV. Work tenaciously for Christ

A. Galatians 6:9 “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

B. When William Carey had succeeded in establishing his pioneer missionary work in India, his supporters in England sent him an assistant, a Mr. Ward, who was a printer by trade. Soon they were turning out printed portions of the Bible for distribution among the natives. Carey spent many years learning the language and wrote grammars and dictionaries for the use of his successors.

One day while Carey was away from his station, a disastrous fire broke out and completely destroyed the building, the presses, many printed Bibles and, worst of all, the manuscripts, grammars and dictionaries on which Carey had spent so much time.

When Mr. Carey returned, his servants told him of the loss. Without a word of despair or anger he knelt down and thanked God that he had the strength to do the work all over again. He started immediately, not wasting a moment in idle despair and before his death he duplicated his first achievements and produced far better work than he had done formerly.

Thousands, in this world, have lost all—including the very house over their head—and many who know the Lord have gone on, in faith, seeking to serve Him in and through it all. When sudden disaster and loss come to God's people, He again proves His all-sufficiency..—Christian Victory.