At one time or other all true believers have grown mightily discouraged in our efforts to serve the Lord. Some have sunk to such a low state that they have a feeling of being “abandoned” by God and left with a broken spirit and troubled heart. For the record, God never abandons anyone and it is a sin to even think such a thing.
Nonetheless when we get down and cannot feel God’s presence it is understandable how weak flesh can come to that conclusion. In Psalm38:10 David lamented: As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.
I can visualize David who loved the Lord with all of his heart sitting at his desk with tears streaming from his eyes as he wrote this sorrowful passage. I can imagine him asking, “Where are you God? Why did you leave me all alone?”
It is obvious to me that David was under demonic attack from a plaguing spirit of discouragement when he wrote this! This kind of discouragement comes straight out of hell and the dedicated believer is often overwhelmed by this sudden and unexpected experience.
It is my belief that Christians don’t bring it on themselves, nor does the Lord send it. Such an attack usually has nothing to do with any specific sin or failing by the believer. We must understand that the spirit of discouragement is Satan’s most potent weapon against believers. Most often, he uses it to try to convince us we have brought Gods wrath upon ourselves by not measuring up to his holy standards.
It’s a fiery dart that Satan shoots at us to get us to doubt ourselves. He knows he can’t tempt us to turn away from, or stop loving Jesus, but he can damage our ministry and in his war with God that is even better than winning individual souls. So he swamps us with vicious lies to make us think we will never be good enough to serve Him. He wants to get us so downcast that we will become ineffective and even possibly decide to abandon our mission altogether!
To be candid I am often a victim of such an attack. It doesn’t matter how much success I might enjoy in helping to lead unbelievers to Jesus, I am often left feeling that I have failed miserably. It is as though within moments of spiritual victory I become melancholy. In my more lucid moments I realize it is due to having become public enemy number one of the hordes of hell who have grown unhappy with my service for the Lord, but lucidity sometimes is not the prevailing force.
We are in fact in a spiritual war and the other side does not like to lose.
When the fiery darts are shot at me by the thousands it makes me feel as though I’ve lost my spiritual understanding. This leads me to feel as though my vision and revelation from the Lord have left me. I often get on my knees and plead with God, crying out to Him, asking where He is and why He will not draw near to me like He has done in the past. Fasting at times like these is good as well.
I admit that I have been so low and felt so unworthy of approaching God that on rare occasions I have even become too discouraged to even pray. Again I’m in good company; listen to the agonizing plight of David when he wrote in Psalm 39:2 . . . I was mute and silent, I refrained even from good, And my sorrow grew worse. David was saying, Lord, I am too down and discouraged to even lift my hand up to you. I cannot pray. I am drained and empty and have no desire to even do good. I have nothing to say.
And as a consequence – his plight grew worse.
Becoming too discouraged to approach God in prayer is dangerous and foolish, because it alone is the only way to win the battle against the superior forces of hell. You see ALONE we are doomed; it is only through the love of the Father, the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit that we can win this war or in fact do ANYTHING. We must not spurn the very thing we need most in order to become victorious. When you feel God has withdrawn from you – Go to Him!
John 15:5
. . . For apart from me you can do nothing.
July 13 2016 – Click here to listen