GOAC Ch. 13a

Discouragement - “The soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.”

“The church of Christ abounds with people who are “discouraged because of the way.” Either inwardly or outwardly, and oftentimes both, things look all wrong, and there seems no hope of escape. Their souls faint in them, and their religious lives are full of discomfort and misery. There is nothing that so paralyzes effort as discouragement, and nothing that more continually and successfully invites defeat. The secret of failure or success in any matter lies far more in the soul’s interior attitude than in any other cause or causes. It is a law of our being, which is only now beginning to be discovered, that the inward man counts for far more in every conflict than anything the outward man do or may possess.”


Hannah talks about discouragement; today we would call it depression. The Bible calls it a crushed spirit. “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Prov. 17:22)

Depression is the determination that there is no hope. A sense that you are stuck where you are, there is nothing anyone can do, there is nothing that you can do to change things or yourself.

Hannah declares quite plainly that the source of discouragement is never from God but rather from evil.

In this book Hannah is dealing with one of the key important principals of Christianity – the conscious determination to trust God, the goodness of His soul and the strength of His enduring power exercised in your behalf. We simply call this – Faith.


The practical reality of faith is that it affects everything I do or say and continue to think. As Hannah says, ‘it is the law of our internal being.’

Faith described as a law is simply a natural force and like all natural forces it is an ever increasing, accumulating and copulating force. You could picture it as a snowball rolling down a powdered filled mountain. As the ball rolls it gets bigger accumulating more snow. The bigger it gets the more it weighs, the faster it rolls. The size increases making it able to accumulate even more snow, making it bigger and heavier and faster. All the while leaving a track behind it that also increased width, depth and length. A track if you will for other thoughts to follow in the groves of our mind.


Hannah lists some causes for discouragement –

“The first and perhaps the most common of these causes is the fact of our own incapacity.”

I have said this is too difficult for me. I can’t bear all the responsibility of a righteous life. Well, the truth, that is correct, I can’t and the further truth is at times I don’t want to—a warning sign I think that discouragement is knocking or should I say scratching at the door, ‘let me in’.

“Another very subtle cause for discouragement is to be found in what is called the fear of man.”

What will they think? Will they accept me? Will they love me? Will I have a place among them? The better questions for me is what is the value of “their” acceptance and if there be anything of eternity in it. My greatest acceptance I find is in The Cross of Calvary.



“There is, however, one sort of discouragement that is very common, and that seems as if it must be right, even though in all other cases it may be wrong, and that is the discouragement that arises from our own failures.”

You can think about God what you want but when we get to the end of the book of Job God was not pointing out all His wondrous abilities to make Job feel bad so he would crawl into a hole and die. Job was fighting that feeling during the conversations he was having with his “friends.” Job had a personal encounter with the Living God and while Job discovered that God was everything and he Job was not much of anything the result was Job changed his mind—he repented I believe of his false pride, he learned not to be thinking so much about himself and his circumstances. The result was God’s healing, restoration and peace.



“But you may ask whether a sense of sin produced by the convictions of the Holy Spirit ought not to cause discouragement. If I see myself to be a sinner, how can I help being discouraged? To this I answer that the Holy Spirit does not convict us of sin in order to discourage us, but to encourage us. His work is to show us our sin, not that we may lie down in despair under its power, but that we may get rid of it.”

The fruit, the natural by-product of discouragement –

“Discouragement, from whatever source it may come, produces many sad results.”

Murmuring – speaking against God, accusing Him of wickedness

Contagious – Misery likes company and we can all too easily become ensnared by someone else’s discouraging report or worse I think, be spreading the “Bad News”.

Turning things around –

“If I am asked how we are to get rid of discouragements, I can only say, as I have had to say of so many other wrong spiritual habits, we must give them up. It is never worth while to argue against discouragement. There is only one argument that can meet it, and that is the argument of God. When David was in the midst of what were perhaps the most discouraging moments of his life, when he had found his city burned, and his wives stolen, and he and the men with him had wept until they had no more power to weep; and when his men, exasperated at their misfortunes, spake of stoning him, then we are told, “But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God”; and the result was a magnificent victory, in which all that they had lost was more than restored to them. This always will be, and always must be the result of a courageous faith, because faith lays hold of the omnipotence of God.” (1Sam. Ch. 30)
“Over and over the psalmist asks himself this question: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?” And each time he answers himself with the argument of God: “Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” He does not analyze his disquietude, or try to argue it away, but he turns at once to the Lord and by faith begins to praise Him.”
“It is the only way. Discouragement flies where faith appears; and, vice versa, faith flies when discouragement appears. We must choose between them, for they will not mix.”



What we believe about the Living God what we believe about others and ourselves must be made plain in order to progress along “the way”. It may be very humiliating, it will cause grief and shame when it is wrong-headed but God has not ever intended that we should live in this state of mind. The necessity of my sin is that it must be revealed in order to be dealt with. The remedy is that Jesus Christ has done all the affective work. God has called me to recognition, participation and knowing all my glory is The Cross upon which He laid. All my hope is typified in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a hymn that sings, ‘It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.’ If I am going to focus on an issue let me ever focus on the fact that God is more than enough (1Jn. 3:19-20) HE died for me and HE arose a victor triumphing over sin, the grave, death, the world and all the forces of wickedness in spiritual places.

2 Tim 2:11-14 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.

Heb 11:11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
Heb 11:12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

“I’m pressing on the upward way” The truth, there is pressing along The Way! The reality, I’m pursuing, “New heights I’m gaining every day.” “No greater joy than I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
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Based on the book by Hannah W. Smith "The God Of All Comfort"
can be read online here or downloaded to your PC

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/smith_hw/comfort.I.html

clicking on the word PAGE will advance you through the chapters

Excellent Deb!