What Comes In The Morning

“…If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust the Lord and rely on your God.”  Isaiah 50:10

I find a great comfort in this verse simply because it acknowledges that Christians can get discouraged.  There are times when one can be made to feel guilty or like their faith in God has weakened when he or she admits they feel down in the dumps.  Well meaning people can say, “no need to feel down; you have God to help you.”  Yes, a discouraged Christian is well aware of that fact.  Reminding one of it doesn’t help.

Times of darkness, depression, feeling very low, comes to everyone at some time or another.  It’s a part of life; a part of living in an imperfect and ungodly world.  Discouragement happens.  We don’t like it.  We don’t want it but there it is swallowing up our hope and joy.  Can anything be done to ease our downcast heart?

There are many examples in the Bible of God’s people falling prey to unwanted discouragement.  The classic case, of course, is Job.  One thing after another hit him full on.  Job lost everything he had:  family, wealth, health, and status.  His wife was his worst comforter.  Yet, in the midst of unimaginable turmoil, Job makes a statement that is extraordinary.  He says in Job 13:15, “Even if God were to kill me, I have no other hope but in Him.”  What an amazing statement!  Job trusted and believed in the fact that God’s ways might not be his ways, but they are by far the best ways.  Job fully understood what we are told in Romans’ 8:28, “ALL things work together for good to those who love God and are called by Him.”

My father often said, “When you don’t know what to do — do what you know to do.”

What you and I know to do, even in the midst of the the blackest sorrows of our lives, is to keep looking up, hang on tight, call out to Him who loves and helps and leads, grab hold of His promises and make that choice to walk on in Him.  Look up, grab hold, walk on, and while you are walking,  remember another of His promises found in Psalm 30:5, “…weeping may last through the night, but joy always comes in the morning.”