Discouragement

"Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing."
1 Thess. 5:11 NASB

Admitting my own discouragement, I have to be encouraged by this passage from the Bible. It is an admonishment to continue to be encouraging. "Just as you also are doing," speaks a ton of the Thessalonian act of giving comfort to the faith and the faithful. Yet they must have also been discouraged enough in their pursuing the right to need a little more encouragement.

I often feel the same. Destined to confront the truth, it seems, that doing God kind of stuff just doesn't feel good, leave you laughing or make you a millionaire, I often just feel like it is not worth it. It doesn't have the result I would wish. It leaves me feeling empty. And on top of it, our culture says you must be lacking somewhere if all you do for the Lord (if you are a believer) continues to end up in poo. Where is the miracle? Where is the great movement of God and His mighty power saving the world, restoring the down-trodden and SETTING THE CAPTIVES FREE?

I think I am feeling sorry for myself. About 30 years of service to God and yet I have arrived back where I started. Is this another moment of faith? Is it another opportunity for God to reveal Himself? Or am I just like the rest of the world, hoping for a miracle, but waiting for the norm?

In the last few days I have had way too much time to think about all these things.