“What If Your Discouragement Is Tied to What You Expected from God?” October 30
Are you discouraged by what you see happening around you?
Maybe it’s what is going on in the world or in our nation.
Maybe it’s something in your family.
Or perhaps life simply hasn’t turned out the way you expected.
Baruch understood that kind of discouragement.
He knew God.
He served alongside Jeremiah.
He understood what God was doing with His people.
And yet he still became deeply discouraged.
Knowing the truth didn’t make the circumstances easy.
Perhaps Baruch was wondering, Why did I have to live through this? Why couldn’t things have turned out differently? Haven’t I been faithful?
God’s answer to him was both gentle and searching.
He asked:
“And do you seek great things for yourself?”
In other words, Baruch’s circumstances were difficult—but God also wanted him to examine what was going on in his own heart.
That raises an important question for us.
When we’re discouraged, is the problem only what is happening around us?
Or could some of our discouragement be connected to what we expected God to give us, protect us from, or make happen?
And when life gets hard, where do we run for help?
To God?
Or to our own version of Egypt—money, government, people, success, comfort, substances, or anything else we hope will make us feel secure?
Today we’ll look at God’s response to a discouraged servant, how Scripture helps us take discouraging thoughts captive, and why looking to the world for the kind of hope only God can give will always leave us disappointed.
