Does it feel like there is a “but” after every good thing? An “as long as” before every anticipated joy? Perhaps a friend asks you about the break you just had. You talk about the lovely cottage, amazing hiking and good meals, then you remark on how happy Phil and Natalie seem before finishing, “…but I had hoped to be married by now”. Maybe you only add that bit in your head, but the “but” is there!
Perhaps experience has taught you to be careful. You’re looking forward to starting a new job, “…as long as the manager is as good as he seemed in the interview”. Bitter experience has taught you not to let your hopes rise too high. Perhaps you have a faith in Christ and you feel uneasy that you find life so hard, so you wonder whether it should be like this. Is it okay for Christians to be discouraged?
The reality is that Christians are discouraged sometimes. Alongside intense sufferings such as illness, bereavement and redundancy, life is also full of smaller discouragements. These are the daily knocks, the unkind words, minor hurts caused by our loved ones, the difficulties that make work exhausting; the grind of life.
The Christ who died for us did so denied and rejected. He knows the depths of despair, forsaken on the cross even by his Father.
How many longings are unfulfilled? Hopes dashed? When two members of your home group are struggling to find work, you find it hard to voice how monotonous you find your secure job. Your marriage is ok, but you had expected much more as you held a ring and made promises in a church. You see the exhaustion in the faces of your friends with small children but you would swap your peaceful sleep for nappies and night-feeds in a heartbeat.
We are not alone in carrying disappointment. Even Jesus knew it keenly. You can feel it in his voice in Luke 13 v 34:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”
Jesus has longed to gather the people of Jerusalem to himself. He is the King of this great city; their High Priest; their God. Yet he is scorned and rejected. They will desert him, shouting for his death though he showed them nothing but love and kindness. Jesus is disappointed at our sin, our coldness, our betrayal of his love. The Christ who died for us did so denied and rejected. He knows the depths of despair, forsaken on the cross even by his Father.
Disappointment, discouragement and even despair are not wrong for followers of Jesus. But these feelings don’t tell the complete story. We are not called to live some pie-in-the-sky faith that pretends to be untouched by the hurts of life. We are called to suffer, but to know hope that shines more brightly the deeper our despair.
Paul captures this beautifully in 2 Corinthians 4 v 16-18 (if you have time, read the whole chapter here):
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
There are three reasons why we do not lose heart. The first is that we are inwardly being renewed. The Holy Spirit has begun a work in us that will see us become more and more like Jesus. A retreat into despair and darkness is not our destiny—it is to be filled with the light and love of Jesus.
Disappointment, discouragement and even despair are not wrong for followers of Jesus. But these feelings don’t tell the complete story.
The second reason is that our troubles are part of the means the Spirit is using to work this in us. By calling our troubles “light and momentary”, Paul is not dismissing them. Rather, he is describing them in the light of the eternal glory they are achieving for us. The discouragements of life are not meaningless; certainly not marks of God’s displeasure with us. They are a means of grace; troubles the Lord both helps us endure and even uses to make us more beautiful. As a gemstone is ground by a thousand grains of sand and grit, so we are polished by the troubles we face to trust Jesus. We reflect his light and beauty more brightly as we are smoothed by suffering.
The third reason we do not lose heart is also one of the ways Jesus transforms our troubles so they make us shine. It is that what we see now—the discouragement, disappointment and despair—is temporary. The things we do not see—Jesus, his love, the new heavens and the new earth, the wedding feast that we will enjoy with Jesus on the days of his return—are eternal. They will come, and they will never pass away.
This world is discouraging. We will face troubles that will hurt deeply. That is the nature of the world we live in, but Jesus gives us great hope, for this world will not overcome us:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
(John 16 v 33)
John Hindley is the pastor of BroadGrace church in Norfolk, UK and the author of the bestselling Serving without Sinking. He studied for ministry at Oak Hill College, and then co-founded The Plant church in Manchester before moving to Norfolk. John is married to Flick and they have three children.
