Discouragement
Job 7:6 “My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.”
Discouragement: nobody likes it, everybody suffers from it, and some suffer more than others. There is good reason for this as there’s only about a million things floating around in this world just waiting to zap your courage and confidence, and in some cases there are even people who seem to live for nothing else but to bring you down. Making matters worse is the fact that many of the things and people closest to us, from whom we gain our confidence and joy, sometimes become the worst offenders, and can bring us down more quickly than anything else. Now poor old Job had all these problems and more: Most of his wealth was gone, possessions destroyed or stolen, and family killed. His wife, suffering from all the same loss, wasn’t as strong as Job, and discouraged him even further, and just to add insult to injury, his friends also found it necessary to blame Job for all his unfortunate circumstances. Job was having a real bad day to say the least, or rather, a really bad year.
You see, we can sometimes get discouraged when we go through things for a couple hours, or at the most a couple days, but Job’s problems were on going for weeks! We know that because after the first day, when all the evil stuff happened to him, that his friends came to comfort him, but because they saw how greatly Job was suffering, they just sat down in the dirt with him, and didn’t say a word…for seven days. Just a side note, many people judge and bash Job’s friends, but how many friends do you have that give up their lives for a couple weeks, just to sit in the dirt with you as you mourn? Regardless, though his friends loved him, and were there to help him, they didn’t have any of the right answers: in fact, neither did Job really. All this left Job where we find him here in this verse, which simply states that his days were just flying by, he had no idea why he was even alive still, and every day was empty, and without hope.
Now the word discouragement means just that: “A feeling of having lost hope or confidence.” It’s to be without courage or inner strength, and in its more severe form turns into depression then despair, which is endless hopelessness. It takes your joy, destroys your desire to do anything, and feels like an hundred pound weight chained to your heart. It can feel like fear, disappointment, emotional and “almost” physical pain. At its best, discouragement is a hindrance; at its worst, it can leave you barely able to breathe. In some cases, the victim can’t sleep, in others, they want nothing but sleep; in any case, it is an unnecessary and damaging problem, for which, if we have Christ, we have a cure.
Job became discouraged for a couple reasons: First of all, which is fairly obvious, is that all his children were killed, along with most of what he had in this life. Second, the trial seemed to go on and on, with no end in sight; and third, none of them, not he, nor his friends could find the reason why any of these things happened, which honestly, was probably worse. We all go through pain and loss, but it’s when that pain continues on, and we cannot understand “why” that we become the most discouraged; as if there is no end, and we have to live with whatever the issue is for the rest of our life. BUT, as it was in Job’s case, so it is with us: GOD has a plan. You may say that’s not very helpful, but I would have to disagree, and I know what it is to be discouraged and depressed: And it is more than encouraging for me to know that no matter how dark it gets, or how much pain I endure, GOD is working it for my benefit.
Think about this: Paul wrote this to the Roman church: “8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
8:27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
The truth of it: We may never experience things like Job did, but we still suffer from discouragement. Many times, we have no idea why we’re so discouraged, what to do about it, or even how to pray about it; and for that reason what Paul wrote is great news. The Holy Spirit of GOD lives inside of us, to help our weakness, to teach us how to deal with and pray for such things, and when we can’t find the words to say, He says them for us, in ways we cannot understand. He knows our hurts and issues better than we do, and prays to GOD for us. IT says the Spirit groans for us, as if He takes part in our pain and despair. He is our Comforter, and when everything else fails, whether family, or friends or our own plans, is will never leave us. Then skipping to the end, Job 42:12 says this: " So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning" and Paul assures you that everything in your life, whether good or bad, is working together for your benefit.
Other readings: Check out Palsms 27 and I Peter 5:7