What Is Spiritual Discouragement? – And How To Overcome It

We Christians often go through stages in our walk with God in which we feel discouraged.

Whether things are not going well around us and God does not seem to help us, or whether in observing our spiritual life we only see weaknesses, flaws, and failures.

These moments load us with tension, and we might even think about giving up and not continuing.

We stop praying, stop going to church, stop studying the Bible, stop trying to be like Jesus.

I think I can understand the situation you are going through, I myself have lived it.

For this reason, I would like to share with you an idea that needs to be considered when we are going through these moments.

I invite you to read for a moment a small fragment from the Bible:

“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy, because you have participated in the gospel from day one until now.

I am convinced of this: he who began such a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 1:4-6

The first idea I want to highlight is that you need to understand the way God sees you as you go through those circumstances.

In the previous text, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is doing something very special.

He begins his letter to the church in Philippi by telling them how happy and satisfied he is with them.

This in itself is a message of encouragement to those believers and to us.

If the apostle Paul was happy with the faith of those believers, the more God feels happy about your faith, no matter how small and weak.

If the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was interested in encouraging these believers, the more God is not interested in helping you regain your spirits and move on.

For the second idea I want to share, I’d like us to focus on the last verse:

“He who began such a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

This reminds me of the story I once heard from a preacher.

During a flight on a commercial airliner, there was quite a bit of turbulence and passengers started to get nervous.

A lady sitting next to a child was surprised to see that the little boy was not scared like the other passengers.

So he asked the reason for his calm, to which the boy replied; “the pilot is my dad.”

This brief history reminds us that the pilot of our plane, the one who is in control of our earthly and spiritual life, is God.

It reminds us that when we get to a circumstance where we feel we can’t do anything for ourselves, we can trust our father to do what we can’t.

It reminds us that our response to discouragement must be confident that “he who began the good work in us will finish it.

It is easy to set our eyes on ourselves, on our weaknesses and mistakes, on our personal circumstances, and consider that my Christian life depends solely on me.

However, this is not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that, born in Christ, we are a work in the hands of a God of love.

Even these verses teach that the one who began the work in your life was not you, nor will you be ultimately responsible for perfecting it.

God has reserved that right and that duty.

In the face of the discouragement you go through, I would like to remind you that instead of setting your eyes on you, or putting them on your circumstances, you need to trust in God’s power and his promises.

He is able to redeem you even if you are the worst of sinners, he is able to sustain you even in the most difficult trials.

You need to open your eyes to that reality and see with the eyes of faith.

The one who cares most about your spiritual life is not you, it is God.

The one who intervenes the most to help you be better, it is not you, it is God.

Therefore, rest your burdens in Christ and trust that He will bear them for you.

This is not to say that we become cynical and return to sin because it is God’s responsibility to reform us.

What it means is that in your spiritual struggles, in the moments when you feel like you can’t do it anymore, in the moments when you want to give up, you can trust that God won’t let you fail if you ask him to.

You can trust that God won’t let your plane crash if you let it be in control.

I hope these words have been a blessing to your life.


What do you think? Are you going through a situation where you feel discouraged? Share in the comments.

A hug, God bless you.

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