Introduction:
Have you ever felt so anxious and overwhelmed that you just stopped caring?
It’s easy to slip into a “good enough” mentality.
“We’re surviving.”
“No one died today.”
“The house is still standing.”
“Made it through another day of work.”
All of these are attitudes which I have had recently.
I’m losing my desire to press forward. To leave the day better than I found it.
Too often – when we feel discouragement and apathy – we just want to get out. But we overlook the reason we’re in a funk in the first place.
Why Do You Feel the Discouragement and Apathy That You Feel?
The months of April, May, and June were really heavy. Apathy and discouragement are the best word to describe how I felt.
And even feeling that bugged me.
I didn’t want to feel it.
I didn’t like feeling it.
But it’s where I was.
I wasn’t moving forward. If anything, I was moving backward. Sliding downward without anything to grab hold of. No end in sight. No desire to really do anything about it.
So I took a time-out, and I asked, “Why am I here? What is God trying to teach me?” And here is what He has gently shown me this past month through His Word. Maybe it will help you if you’re feeling the same.
Gentle Reminders from The Word of God
First of all, I think we all feel this way at one time or another in our lives. A perpetual discouragement. There’s no single reason we feel this way, so you need to take stock as to why you feel this way. Your reasons will be different than mine.
However, as I was feeling these things, I was reading the Psalms. And I noticed how often David has to instruct his own heart (in both the good times and the bad).
Check out a few of these:
In Psalm 35, after David asks the Lord to be with him in his physical situation, he recognizes that his heart also needs to be encouraged.
35 Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
Psalm 35:3, ESV
fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler
and rise for my help!
3 Draw the spear and javelin
against my pursuers!
Say to my soul,
“I am your salvation!”
In Psalm 42, David both remembers what God has done for him but also laments God forgetting about him. He ends each section by preaching to his own soul.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God.. . .
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
Psalm 42:5, 11
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
And there are many more like these. So, alongside David, I needed to remind my heart that God is for me. But, at times that wasn’t really the problem.
Contentment in the Face of Discouragement and Apathy
I’m blessed.
I mean really blessed.
I have a good job, I live in a great area, and my family is healthy and doing well.
With a statement like that, I felt like I needed to just snap out of it.
But I couldn’t.
Some of what I was feeling was a sense of is this it? I could do more!
And it was that sentiment that made me realize the root of what was going on in my heart.
It was a lack of contentment.
When I read all of the above, I realize that a lack of contentment is truly sinister and wicked. And it is my need for affirmation and approval that lies at the root of my lack of contentment.
I really like affirmation and approval. Yet, God seems to be taking me through a season where people simply don’t care about what I’m doing. I’m not special anymore.
What Does God Want You to Learn?
So, towards the end of June, I started asking God what He wanted me to see through this situation. He started opening my eyes to just how many of the Psalms show David wrestling through his trials and tribulations. His disappointment with God. His discouragement and apathy.
Similarly, I have been teaching through Colossians, and we’ve been camping out in chapter 3. After the apostle Paul spends 2-1/2 chapters extolling Christ and reminding the church that knowing Christ is the foundation for right thinking, which, in turn, leads to right living, he says this:
15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:15-17, ESV
As I examined my own life, I realized that I had not been very thankful lately. So I started trying to thank God for everything.
Everything.
This really began changing my outlook.
I also realized that I had not been doing very much in my life “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Most of the time, I spend my days doing things for the name of Steven. So, I started asking what God might want me to be doing.
Day-by-day.
Hour-by-hour.
Furthermore, I started reading a book called Garden City by John Mark Comer.
This book has been reminding me of what it looks like to consider you entire life as a calling from God.
Abiding in the Face of Discouragement and Apathy
Some of this I knew, but had forgotten. There’s a little book called Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence that was instrumental in my life. It encourages you to bring everything you do before the Lord, and, similar to Paul, do all those things – from the mundane to the great – in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here’s the funny thing. Paul then goes on to describe what having Christ in the center of your life will look like in your marriage, with your parenting, with your own parents, and at work.
I definitely needed that reminder.
So I’ve gone back to thinking about how to do “whatever you do . . . in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).
Most days I don’t get it right. And, some days I’m still discouraged. But living like this has reminded me that there will always be something else to do. And I’ll always probably feel behind. But that’s okay as long as I’m pursuing what God has for me in that moment, and resting in Him. And I can only do that as I abide in His Son, Jesus (John 15). He alone provides the power to live in freedom from discouragement and apathy.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:9-14, ESV
Additional Resources
If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy my book on relational theology.
*For more information on the commands in Colossians 3:18-21, see chapter 1-7 and 10-12 of my book, The Relational God.
Additional Thoughts
This post is part of a group of reflections About Life. These posts are generally a little more personal . . . kind of like a digital diary. Many times I’m using these posts to work through something in my own life.
Encouraged?
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