Discouragment - Our Greatest Enemy.

 One of the greatest enemies we have in life, especially when we are in a place of adversity in our life is "DISCOURAGEMENT"

Question 1:
What is the most discouraging circumstance in your life right now?  What do you wish would just go away?
Next question? Why is it so important to press through that circumstance?

Some of the greatest things that will ever happen in your life, acheivements, relationships, impact on lives,  closeness to God, growth as a person will happen during times of discouragement.  Most of the time when we quit we are just on the cusp of something great happening in our lives.

God's knows we need to learn endurance.  When we are going through adversity God wants us to persevere and trust Him. He wants us to be strong, mature people.  It is only through adversity that these qualities come into our lives.


James 1:3 - "For you know when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow"

Most of the time when we are taking steps of faith in a difficult situation things get worse for a season not better.  We go to marriage counseling, we make a choice to serve God in a greater way thinking things should immediately turn around and instead they get worse it makes us discouraged and want to give up.  Of course, the enemy will try to stop us from moving forward.  But again, as we endure we will see things begin to turn around. 

Words that the enemy bring into our minds in times of adversity are usually an attack on our worth, "you are inadequate" "you are too weak"  " you can't do this'  "nothing ever goes right for me"  These words in our head bring us to a place of discouragement

There are four causes of Discouragement:

1. Fatigue - you are vunerable to become very discouraged if you are not taking care of yourself physically and emotionally - not enough sleep, not exercising, not enough down time, never having fun and enjoyable, over extending yourself.

We have to take time to take care of ourselves when going through adversity.  You may say, "I don't have time to take care of myself", my answer to that is " you don't have time not to take care of yourself"  because if you don't - all the things you think are so important you may lose anyway if you don't take care of yourself.

When we are going through adversity or crisis in life we need to pay special attention to ourselves, we need to do 70% of what we usually do.  This is so important.  You have to ask yourselves why you make excuses not to slow down.  Sometimes it's because staying so busy keeps us from having to deal with our feelings or our thoughts. 

Take baby steps - take a day off and do some self-care.  Look at your schedule - what can you shave off if only for a season?  What are you wasting time on that you can use to rest, exercise, quiet time with God or do something you love?

If you are in a place of adversity or crisis right now - Ask God to show you what you can do to take care of yourself and become refreshed during this time.

Next Post - 3 more causes of Discouragement.