Unless you are an avid lover of winter sports, it's a good chance that you are starting to feel like winter can be a long season. Maybe you have even been getting a bit discouraged at this time of the year, knowing that spring is still a long time in coming. Possibly, discouragement is by now your constant companion.
It was advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale the tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements; Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Doubt, Lying, Pride and so on. Laid apart from the rest of the pile was a harmless-looking tool, well-worn and priced very high. "The name of the tool?" asked one of the purchasers.
"Oh," said the adversary, that's Discouragement."
"Why have you priced it so high?"
"Because it's more useful to me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a person's heart with that one, when I cannot get near him with other tools. Now once I get inside, I can make him do what I choose. It's a badly worn tool, because I use it on almost everyone since few people know it belongs to me."
The devil's price for Discouragement was so high, he never sold it. It's still his major tool, and he still uses it today.
Larry Olsen describes a man lost in the desert: "He has been out of food and water for days. His lips are swollen, his tongue is swollen, he's all beat up and bloody. Some of his bones are almost peeking through. He has been scraped and beat up by the cactus and sand and sun. He's blistered. As he's crawling over this little hill he comes across this little plant and props himself up on one bloody elbow, looks down at this plant and says, "You know, if things keep going like this I might get discouraged!"
May I encourage us all to take a fresh look at the one who conquered all discouragement on our behalf, and spoke these words of comfort? "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you may have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
Pastor John Giesbrecht
