When & Why?

Ps.42:11 “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Saviour and my God!”

The first of the four questions that can help you learn from your discouragements is, when are you usually discouraged? I will use the word discouraged loosely here when I say that I can get discouragedwhen I wake up too early, believe it or not. When I wake up too early, I am usually very cranky, I feel low and very discouraged. I have a very unique sleeping pattern, very different from many people I know. I sleep very late, I mean in the early hours of the morning, but I realized it is not like that for everyone. People typically sleep very early. Who sleeps at eight o’clock at night? That is not normal behaviour, or is it? I just could not understand it back in the day. Obviously, because I sleep much later at night.

For a long time, I could not understand why people wake up at like four or five o’clock in the morning. Who gets up at five? Excuse me, you are supposed to be changing gears at that time. When you are attentive to “little” things like this that are triggers, you are better able to guard against getting to low points, points when you act out of character. When are you usually discouraged? We all have our own patterns.

Sometimes, we get discouraged when we let ourselves down. For some people, the source of their discouragement is thoughts about what the future would be like. However, the more you walk with God, the less you experience such discouragement. There was a time in my life that I used to get discouraged when I think about my future. This used to happen in my university days. But right now, by God’s grace, I am pretty excited when I think about my future. The more you walk with God, the more excited you become when you think about your future.

When are you usually discouraged? When you answer this question, you will discover a pattern that will liberate you. The second question that can help you learn from your discouragements is, why am I currently discouraged? Drill down and write it down. When I drilled down on why I get discouraged about letting people down, I discovered that the reason is, I do not want to have a bad name. When we were growing up, it was drilled it into us that a good name is better than silver and gold. So this value is in my fabric and it was the reason I was having that pattern.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are indeed my Saviour and I choose to put my hope in You! I will praise You because You are the Source of my encouragement, in Jesus Name. Amen!