Seven
I’m Discouraged

Jesus, Change My Perspective

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Psalm 31:24 NIV

Spring will be a season when new beauty grows in our lives in ways we cannot imagine right now. We can wait for it with glad wonder. We can wait for it with renewed joy. We can wait for the day we will bloom.1

I remember a day during a difficult season when God broke through the dark clouds of disappointment that hovered overhead. Facedown on the floor, I sobbed ugly tears. I could barely catch my breath. I choked out questions like “How did this happen, Lord? Why did this happen?”

Right there in the middle of my despair the Lord whispered His wisdom to me: “Susie, you’re asking the wrong questions.” And I was. Those questions only deepened my sense of despair. I sat up, wiped my tears, and whispered back, “So what are the right questions, Lord?” He gave me three questions to ask myself that forever changed the way I process and frame my disappointments. They are:

When we allow our disappointments to cloud our view and our negative conclusions to go unchallenged, our perspective will always be skewed. We can’t see clearly when our faith-lens is smeared with lies.

If you’re battling discouragement or disappointment, I encourage you to prayerfully spend some time with these questions. Search your Bible. Ask God for a fresh perspective. See if He doesn’t bring truth right into the middle of your circumstance.

The Faces of Discouragement

When life doesn’t quite turn out the way we thought or hoped it would, we battle discouragement. We may even lose hope. Sometimes our heartbreak sits so close to the surface that it feels like we’re bleeding under our armor. How can that not impact our perspective?

Then there’s the long, drawn-out battle. When the storms rage on and we see no end in sight, it can be exhausting and discouraging.

When we feel misjudged or misunderstood, it’s downright hurtful and discouraging.

When our loved ones struggle, wander, or wade into the waters of apathy, we experience fear, worry, and despair. Hard to watch when we know God has so much more for them.

Sometimes, though, we’re the cause of our own despair. We beat ourselves up over our imperfections. We hold ourselves to a standard that we’d never ask of others. Or we’re just stuck and can’t seem to move forward because of past sins or missteps.

Another way we cause self-induced discouragement is by wrongly framing our story or by white-knuckling our unrealistic expectations. Most of us are far more blessed than we realize. Yet when we zero in on a certain point of disappointment, we miss the abundance all around us. We compare and despair. We believe what we see on social media and forget that everybody hurts, everybody has messes, and everybody needs a Savior.

I know, for me, I had an unrealistic picture of what my sons’ faith journeys should look like once they became young adults. I soon realized that God’s promises don’t apply to my own unrealistic expectations. His promises apply to my impossible situations. These are two totally different things.

We read in Romans 4 how Abraham faced the fact that his body was as good as dead, but he did not waver in unbelief regarding the promises of God. That’s sturdy faith in the face of the facts. Whereas when we despair over our disappointment and that disappointment comes from an expectation based on fantasy, then we need a reset before we can fully engage our faith.

For example, let’s say you’re married to a decent guy but your marriage lacks the zeal and passion you long for. You read racy romance novels and relentlessly watch other “perfect couples” from a distance and before you know it, you find yourself constantly critical of your own marriage. Your unhealthy perspective forges an unhealthy thought pattern that plays on repeat. Those repetitive thoughts eventually cause you to despair and look around for other options. Suddenly you come to believe that there’s really nothing good or salvageable in your marriage. And instead of asking God for a miracle, you linger around your disappointment until finally you tell yourself that you deserve better than this. You create an alternate reality, which eventually leads to destructive choices that you cannot undo.

I’ve talked with women who’ve walked this path. They’d give anything to go back and engage some radical faith for their marriage. They’ve shared how in hindsight, as it turned out, their lives and marriages weren’t nearly as terrible as they perceived them to be.

For faith to work, we need to face the facts—to see things as they are, and not as they seem, or even as we think they should be. And, amidst our hurt, to be able to see how truly rich we are in Christ (and to acknowledge how profoundly He’s already blessed us). We also need to see and acknowledge the depth of our neediness before Him. And when it comes to our heartbreak, we need to admit our shortcomings, own our part.

We’ll never get anywhere in life by demanding things from God, or by constantly blaming others and refusing to look at ourselves, or by striving in our own strength in an effort to force an outcome. To thrive amidst our disappointments, we need to be humble, teachable, and grateful. We need to believe that God knows what He’s doing. We need to embrace the fact that we see only a portion of the whole story. There’s so much we don’t know, so many things we perceive incorrectly. Thus, we need to be willing—with God’s help—to learn new ways to navigate our hurts and frame our perspective. Jesus will show us His way. There is no other way.

This is the essence of entrusting our very real and imperfect lives to a perfect, powerful God.

So how do we navigate through our disappointments with a right perspective and a heart full of faith? I use the letters ABCD to find perspective in the face of hurts and heartbreaks:

Acknowledge That You’re an Heir

I spent the better part of my book Your Powerful Prayers exploring what it means to be an heir of God and why our status makes a world of difference in how we approach His throne to address the concerns of our hearts. Check it out if you need a fresh reminder of what it means to belong to the Most High God. But in the meantime, here’s a short excerpt that speaks to the blessing of our heir status:

The truth of the matter is, as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, we have certain privileges. We have His presence, His promises, and His power. Let that sink in for a moment. In fact, let me say it again: We have His presence—His holy, awe-inspiring presence where the fullness of joy is found. We have His promises—His faithful, true promises that change everything for the Christ-follower. And we have His power—the same power that rose Christ from the dead, available to us. We’re more spiritual than physical, more found than lost, and more loved than we know. Isn’t that just something?

And though we face giants who aim to destroy us, and an enemy who’s always in a bad mood, we serve a joy-filled, patient, kind, and loving Father who always leads us triumphantly through our battles.3

When disappointment clouds your view, stop right where you are and remind yourself whose you are. Picture yourself at the royal table of grace not because you’ve earned it, but because Christ has earned it for you. Remind your soul that you lack no good thing, because you have Jesus. And He happens to be the God who fights for you. You’re not alone in your trials, and those very trials will serve you well in the end if you’ll be trained by them. Spend some time with Him around this idea of your royal identity.

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Romans 8:17

Bring Your Blessings into View

I know that when I find myself careening for the ditch of disappointment, it’s because I’ve taken my eyes off of Jesus, which makes me also lose sight of the many blessings He’s already provided in my life.

Have you ever seen one of those movies when the camera zooms in fast on a person and it makes everything else in the peripheral go blurry? That’s what disappointment does to our perspective. And the enemy wants it that way. But he’s not the boss of our perspective. We are. Maybe it’s time to look around and bring your blessings back into focus. Notice them. Speak them aloud. Imagine how you’d feel if they went away tomorrow. Thank God for the nuances of the things that mean so much to you. Linger around your blessings and look at them from different angles. For example, spend some time thanking Jesus for the systems in your body that automatically work whether you notice or not. Thank Him for the miraculous morning sunrise that reminds you of His fresh and new mercies. Doing this on a regular basis will heal your soul and restore your perspective.

When we step back and take inventory of the boundary lines that make up our lives, we can say with the psalmist

O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;

You maintain my lot.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;

Yes, I have a good inheritance.

I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;

My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.

I have set the Lord always before me;

Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

Psalm 16:5–8 NKJV

One day when I knew I needed a reset, I spent some time pondering my place at the table of grace. Then I began to look around within my lot lines and suddenly felt overwhelmed by God’s goodness to me. I marveled at how patient He is with us! Sometimes I feel like the child who’s so wrapped up in her angst about a knot in her shoelace that she’s forgotten that she’s standing in line at Disneyland.

Listen, I’m not saying that our troubles are trite. But we certainly make little of our blessings (we make them trite) by focusing too much on our unfulfilled desires, our hurts, and our disappointments. There’s a way to live in the tension of today’s blessings and burdens and tomorrow’s promises and breakthroughs. May Jesus show us how to stay humbly grateful and hopefully expectant.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal:

Dear Father, with all my heart, I thank You for how You’ve guided and provided, for what You’ve purposed and what You’ve prevented, for what You’ve granted and what You’ve withheld. All of these reveal Your goodness to me. You have so strategically and wisely led me and loved me that it leaves me breathless. How can I ever thank You enough? Help me to live a life worthy of Your name. In Your mighty name I pray. Amen.

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Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

Claim the Power and Potency of God’s Promises

We lose perspective when we loosen our hold on God’s promises. We lose perspective when we zero in on our hurts to the point that we no longer remember all we possess simply because we have Jesus. How do we find clarity again? First, we remind ourselves who we are because of whose we are. We are heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. Then, we tell our souls that the blood will never lose its power! God’s promises are as potent as they’ve ever been. The gospel is not old news, it’s now news; it’s the best news! We remind ourselves that all of heaven is on our side and all of God’s promises are yes, and amen.4

If you’ve lost vision for your life, if you’ve lost hope and perspective, it might be time to apply the passage below to your current circumstances. Our story is bigger than we are. People are watching us, waiting to see how we’ll sort through our hardships and disappointments. They’re waiting to see if our faith is real.

So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.

Hebrews 12:12–13

Maybe it’s time to grab hold of God’s promises that are specific to your situation.5 Maybe it’s time to grab your trembling knees and tell your legs to be strong in the strength of the Lord. Keep walking. God will give you strength as you go.

Maybe it’s time to get a fresh vision for where God is taking you. Find out what obedience looks like for you in this particular season and set your face like flint on the path God has for you. As you apply yourself to God’s purposes in this difficult season, others will notice and be strengthened too. Your faith affects your own story and the greater story God is writing on the earth today. Be strong in the Lord and put your trust in Him.

Die to Self Wherever You Need To

In order for us to find hope again—the kind of hope that heals and purifies us from the inside out—we must submit ourselves to the searching work of the Holy Spirit. When our disappointments surface, so do the things in our character that need to go—things like entitlement, selfishness, and ingratitude. All of these are displayed in our tendency to compare and then despair, or to gripe and complain.

If we’re not careful, our heartbreak will make us selfish, self-focused people. Our grief turns to self-pity, our world shrinks, and everybody notices but us. We’ll never fully find perspective amidst our hurts or sort through our disappointments unless we’re willing to acknowledge, take responsibility for, and then surrender the parts of us that Jesus wants to redeem.

This isn’t about condemnation. It’s about invitation: the invitation to die to our inner lawyer’s desire to self-defend and self-justify; to our imagined rights and selfish demands that compel us to believe we should be more privileged than another; and to the self-pity that keeps us stuck in the pit. We have to die to the destructive parts of ourselves so we can live more fully in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Life in Christ makes us full and free, rich and true. It’s the narcissist turned heir who now serves at the homeless shelter. It’s the former anorexic who can now sit down and enjoy a delicious piece of pie with her family. It’s the former workaholic who comes in the door after work and happily knows how to drop his sword so he can pick up his kids. It’s the once insecure woman who now takes audacious risks on the other side of the world, all for the kingdom.

When we die to the very things that threaten to destroy us, God’s Spirit lives more valiantly through us. And when that happens, we are awakened and others are blessed.

People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it is just the opposite. It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the more of real peace and joy.6

He’s Always Up to Something New

Right in the face of your disappointments, our star-breathing God invites you to sing a new song, to pray a fresh prayer, to secure a redeemed perspective. When you engage with Him in this way—when you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength—you honor Him. And in the process, He somehow naturally and supernaturally changes you.

God is always up to something new. And wherever you’ve been in life, whatever thoughts you’ve had on repeat, know this: He has wired you for newness.

Lance Hahn, author of The Master’s Mind, joined me on the show a while back. He offers an important perspective here:

Much of what we define as suffering comes from a distorted perspective. . . . I wonder how many of us fully understand the power of our thoughts. Do we realize that what we think, we will ultimately do? There is no action that is not preceded by a thought. The human body is designed with a command center called the brain, and every system takes its control from that center. If we want to bring change to our lives—and who doesn’t?—we must master things here first.7

Though Scripture tells us that we’re changed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), and I’ve practiced redeemed thinking for years, it wasn’t until I learned how profoundly our bodies respond to our most consistent thoughts that I felt the deep conviction to put even more effort into the perspective that I attach to my circumstances. In other words, I’m quicker to challenge my instinctive perspective, especially if it pulls my gaze downward.

If we allow our disappointments and discouragements to stay at the forefront of our minds—unchallenged and unfiltered—our perspective will become increasingly negative, and our lives progressively unhealthy.

Disappointment and discouragement are tough on our systems. They cause our muscles to tense and our cells to self-protect, making it difficult to receive proper nourishment from food. We don’t hydrate as well when we’re bogged down with despair. We don’t sleep as well either, which profoundly affects the healing and repair process in our bodies. Discouragement also has a way of pulling our gaze to the ground. Forget about vision; we don’t even have perspective. And the enemy wants it that way. But remember what Scripture says?

Where there is no vision from God, the people run wild,

but those who adhere to God’s instruction know genuine happiness.

Proverbs 29:18 THE VOICE

Here’s the Amplified version of this same passage:

Where there is no vision [no revelation of God and His word], the people are unrestrained;

But happy and blessed is he who keeps the law [of God].

Another translation of this passage says that without vision, people cast off all restraint. When we see no way out, we stop pressing in. When we despair, we tend to allow ourselves indulgences that temporarily numb our discomfort because survival becomes our main goal. When we surrender to our circumstances rather than surrendering to God in our circumstances, we passively go with the flow and call it meekness.

But when we consistently remember God’s faithfulness and rehearse His promises, when we apply His truth to our lives, and when we consistently make healthy life-adjustments, the narrative changes in our brains and our physiology, and those messages work their way out into our emotions, our perspective, and our reality.

But faith holds unswervingly to the promise (Hebrews 10:23), believes in spite of the odds (Hebrews 11:1), and dreams new dreams (Hebrews 11:6) in the face of frustration, fear, disappointment, and discouragement. You’ve heard this oft-quoted passage from the prophet Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

This is such an encouraging passage—one that fits well on memes and greeting cards—but we often forget that God sent this message to a people in exile. In fact, earlier in the chapter, God told them to plan for the future in the face of their current hardship. Let’s take a look at the charge God gave His people:

Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

Jeremiah 29:5–7 NIV

Picture, if you can, Jesus walking right into the middle of your circumstance and passionately imploring you, I want you to dream here. I want you to feast here. I want you to increase, not decrease here. I want you to be a blessing to those around you. I am doing a new thing. It won’t always be this way. You don’t see it clearly now, but will you trust me? Soon, and very soon, you will see the new thing I’m about to do for you. Guard your heart here, hold fast to the promise here, guard your mind here, learn to flourish here, and remember what’s true here, even when it doesn’t feel true.

We don’t flourish in our hardships by wallowing in them. Nor do we flourish in our hardships by ignoring them. We flourish when we face what breaks our heart, and then we look up to Jesus, the keeper of our hearts. As we cooperate with Him, He helps us sort through our story in the most healing way possible. We flourish when we abide in Christ. We flourish when we steward what He has entrusted to us. And we flourish when we ruthlessly banish the attitudes and thoughts that only weaken us. We’ve got to develop a backbone when it comes to the enemy and his plans to destroy us.

One of the muscles God strengthened in me through my health battle was my “NO!” muscle. Ephesians 6 tells us about the weapons of our warfare. Ephesians 6:16 talks about the shield of faith God has given us to extinguish every fiery dart the enemy sends our way. In my season of suffering, it seemed that the enemy had constant and open access to me (he didn’t, but it felt that way). Arrows zinged by me from every angle.

It wasn’t until I started to raise my shield—over and over again, with every arrow, every lie, and every threat—that I got better and better at saying NO! to the enemy of my soul. Like Daniel in the film Karate Kid, God had me practice the same moves over and over again (wax on, wax off) until my defensive moves became almost instinctive. Now I sense a lie when it comes my way, and in feisty faith, I say, “No way! I’m not wearing that, carrying it, or even considering it.” And I block it with my shield. I can’t afford discouragement or despair, especially since God has called us to courage. And while I can’t prove this, I get the feeling that our faith-shield grows the more we use it.

With the Spirit of the Living God actively at work within us, we have access to more power and strength and courage than we could ever appropriate. So let’s walk in the power of the Holy Spirit so we will not give in to the whims of our self-focused nature. We need God’s power, especially when our hearts are breaking.

We’re invited to thrive in the not yet. We’re invited to grow strong in battle. We’re invited to know a peace that surpasses understanding—the kind of other-worldly peace that makes no sense when you consider our circumstances. These are just a few of the countless treasures that belong to us because we belong to Jesus. We can thrive here. So let’s thrive here.