Discouragement - Part 2 - Dogged Determination

Discouragement often hits hardest when life is bleakest, sometimes severely enough that it threatens to derail a Christian who has followed God for years. Dark emotions can emerge suddenly through an unexpected event, such as the death of a child, the dissolving of a marriage, the loss of a job, the failure of a ministry, or the delivery of a hopeless diagnosis. Not always spurred by a single event, discouragement can also result from reflecting about ongoing situations. Perhaps the children seem no closer to returning to God than they were ten years ago. A disappointing marriage drags on with no hope of change. Someone realizes he no longer has the physical energy to work like he used to. Faithful ministry is rewarded only with spiritual complacency. Every suggestion and potential remedy has been exhausted, with no progress toward a cure. Whether the cause of discouragement is a sudden, overwhelming event or the gradual realization of a continuing or worsening situation, the believer must have something to give him hope no matter how bleak life becomes.

Job provides an example. In a very short space of time and in cataclysmic fashion, Job lost everything. His riches vanished, his livelihood disappeared, his children were tragically killed, his health was destroyed, and, in the midst of it all, his wife was unsupportive. Job's life suffered a tremendous reversal, and the friends who came to comfort did more harm than good by alleging that the troubles were all Job's fault. Job was, in fact, very discouraged. He wished he had never been born, and several chapters are filled with his expressions of despair. In the end, however, Job came out victorious. How did that happen? In part, it was due to a dogged determination on the part of Job. In the midst of his discouragement, he made a phenomenal stabilizing statement: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 13:15).

Job's statement considered two factors. First, he thought about how bad life could get. It would have been almost impossible for his life to get any worse. The only thing Job could imagine to make things worse was if God would kill him. The second factor revealed in Job's statement was his faith in God. Job determined that NOTHING would eliminate his hope in God. Job knew that troubles come to all men; in the midst of those troubles, man could turn his back on God or man could look to God. Job chose the latter. He knew it was better to hope in God and experience divine help through the trial than to have no such hope and to walk through the time of trouble alone.

Consider Job's statement: "Though He slay me." Was that a possibility? Could it come to the point that God might take his life? Could a servant of God actually die in the process of trying to faithfully serve God? This week marked the sixty-year anniversary (January 1956) of when that very thing happened to Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian. Others killed as a result of their faith include Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, John and Betty Stam, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Burnham. At least six missionaries died (some cannibalized) on "Martyr Isle," part of what is now Vanuatu, before any missionary successfully lived there. During the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900), 189 Christian missionaries were killed, along with 32,000 Chinese Christians. Many Christians have been killed and continue to be killed in places like North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other countries around the world. These modern-day believers join those mentioned in Hebrews 11:35-37. "Others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword." Many of God's faithful servants have died over the years due to illness, accident, or attack.

God does not carelessly neglect His children, nor does He capriciously allow some to be killed. Nevertheless, sometimes within the greater scope of God's world-wide redemptive plan, it is necessary for some to die. The Christians listed above accepted that fact; many of them made statements expressing such a belief. Hebrews recalls these sufferers and martyrs in the very context of their faith. Job recognized the possibility; his statement essentially says, "I accept God's plan for me, and I will continue to follow Him even if an untimely death is part of His blueprint for my life." Job and many other believers in history have chosen not to give up on God in the midst of their despair. They have chosen to trust Him no matter what.

Peter provides another example of dogged determination. At a time when many were deserting Jesus, Jesus asked the twelve if they would leave also. "Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life'" (John 6:68).

Peter knew there was nowhere else to go. If he were to leave Jesus when things were hard and discouraging, he would be left with no source of words that really mattered. While Job seems to express the idea that he could not turn away from the God of his trust, Peter extends the idea a little further. Even if he were to leave God, where would he go? Where, indeed? Jesus gave him words of life. It is true that a life bent on following God sometimes experiences discouragement and confusion, but without God, those troubling things only increase. The one who follows God may not have all the answers and hope, but with his trust in God, at least he has some answers and hope.

Job clung to God as the source of hope; Peter clung to the source of life. Job did not know what God was doing, but he chose to hope in God when life went wrong. Others had turned from Jesus when they did not understand His teaching (John 6:60-66); Peter did not fully understand either (Matthew 16:9), but he chose to follow God when things didn't make sense. Aren't those the primary discouraging aspects of life - that even sincere believers don't always know what God is doing and don't always understand what He is trying to teach? These men were willing to persevere in spite of the lack of answers; they knew enough about God to determine that they would follow Him anyway - no matter what. They would not let discouragement win.

These two verses, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, reveal the absolute necessity of trusting God in every situation. God is the only answer, the only source of hope and life. No matter how terrible life becomes, when it is all over, it will be clear that trust in God was never misplaced. Therefore, it does not matter how bad the circumstances or challenges of life are. God is the right place for the believer to place his trust, even if he dies in the process, even if he never sees the answers he hopes for. It is this dogged determination that keeps a believer from yielding to the discouragement that threatens to tear him away from his faith in God.