The beginning of any work is very arduous. Have you noticed that every time you started something, you felt very discouraged and depressed after sometime since results were not evident. It is even more when it is related to working with people.
Last year the Pastor of our Church asked me and my wife to help with the married couples’ ministry. We gladly accepted the invitation and faithfully did our work. The mega events were always very successful. However month after month, it is very difficult to get people for the regular program and studies. One of the spouses is working or traveling out of town, a child is sick, children have exams, and so on… A few months back I was really discouraged after a round of telephone calls. Many said that they would not be able to make it on a particular day.
I began to feel inadequate and contemplating giving up. Immediately God began to impress my heart with a new thought. “Why do you look at those who don’t make it and be so discouraged? Think how best you can minister to those who are coming.”
The secret is not in wailing about what you don’t have but to do the following.
1. Start with whatever little you have. The little flour and oil was not enough to feed the widow and her son but it fed them and Elijah through the famine when God intervened and did a miracle. But it had to start with that little flour and oil, (1 Kings 17:9–16). A tree cannot be grown overnight. We need to prepare the ground, plant a seed, add water and manure for it to grow. Eventually there will be a seedling, small plant, and slowly a tree and then a huge tree. It still starts as a small seed.
2. Fix your eyes on Jesus and off your situations. When Jeremiah was called, God told him very plainly that people would not listen to him and try to harm you. Yet he had to do it irrespective of the outcome. If he had thought for a moment about the results, there wouldn’t be a more depressed person than Jeremiah. The writer of Hebrews says, “… fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:2 NIV)” Keep focussed on who God.
3. Look forward and stop dwelling in the past. In Phil 3:13–14 (NLT) Apostle Paul says, “… but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.”
4. Rejoice in the Lord even if the situation is unfavourable for God is still in control. The key then is not only looking to God and to rejoice in Him as a result. If you feel discouraged, don’t dwell on the negatives but look to what you have, what you have accomplished. When you don’t have good shoes, look to the one without legs and be thankful for those legs. When the food on your plate in not to your liking, look at those who do not even get a morsel a day and be thankful that you have a full plate. In short don’t look to those who have more than you but to those who lack even what you have.
Then you cannot help but be thankful, grateful and a whole lot more joyful in Him. We can boldly say as Habakkuk, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior”, (Hab. 3:18 NIV). The moment I realized this, my whole outlook began to change. My discouragement and depression changed to joy and excitement. I knew without doubt that, “Through God we shall do valiantly”, (Psalms 60:12 KJV); and “… in all these things we are more than conquerors through him”, (Rom 8:37 NIV).
Author: Pas. Vinod Victor is a Master of Divinity graduate from Southern Asia Bible College, Bangalore. He is a Bible teacher and a counselor.
About the Author
