This morning at Staff Meeting, Crawford Loritts gave such a great devotional that I just had to pass along some notes. The main title was How not to be Branded by Discouragement To begin, he gave a few definitions.
Disappointment simply means that your expectations have not been met.
Depression, on the other hand means you have gone below the line of hope.
Discouragement, his topic for the day, sits between disappointment and depression.
We are living in discouraging times, the wind has been taken from our sails in many ways. His message this morning listed five critical decisions that we can make to be sure that we do not become branded (know for, labled, stuck) with discouragement:
- Choose truth – By this he meant choosing truth about the situation with an awareness that the initial response may be harsher than reality (things may look or feel worse than they really are when we are discouraged). He also meant a second level of choosing the truth of God’s word. It is permanent, absolute truth. Ps. 119:50
- Choose joy – Phil. 4:4 – Rejoice always. “Emotions are great passengers, but they are horrible drivers.” Hab. 3
- Choose faith – Hope for and not seen. Faith is being sure about unseen realities.
- Choose community
- We were not born for isolation.
- We need perspective from others in the faith.
- Isolation can be your enemy when you’re discouraged.
- Gal. 6:2 – bear one another’s burdens
- Choose service
- Be careful to not quit. Yes, you may need some downtime – but don’t quit!
- Ps. 126:4-6 – “tears will become holy fertilizer to produce a bumper crop.”
Be faithful, sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other during the hard times we experience.
Eric and I hope that you might find this word from the Lord through Crawford as encouraging as we did!