DON'T LOSE HEART

Because life is unpredictable and because we go through seasons of wilderness and upheavals we can tend to lose heart.  King David speaks of this in Psalm 27:13-14

"I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!"

Our heart is the part of us that gives us our drive.  It moves us ahead.  It is the main thing in us that keeps us pressing on.  We need to make the faith declaration:  “I will resist the lies of the enemy that seek to blind my eyes to the goodness and greatness of God working in my life.”

We find examples of the danger of losing heart with several characters in the Bible.  Saul enquired of a witch and also offered an illegitimate sacrifice to the Lord after losing heart and launching out in haste.  Jonah hated the people of Ninevah and hoped that God would destroy them after he lost heart and didn’t believe they could ever be redeemed.  Peter lost heart after denying Jesus after He was arrested and sentenced to death by crucifixion.  Judas lost heart after disappointing himself by betraying Jesus and letting those who sought to kill Him know where He was.  

Psalm 27 gives us three anecdotes if we find ourselves beginning to lose heart:

1)     BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL LIVE TO SEE THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.

·      I am encouraged by the example of Jacob who thought his son Joseph was dead.  After sending two more of his sons; Benjamin and Simeon; to Egypt for food and then finding out that they had been taken captive, he cries out, “Everything is against me”!  Little did he know that he was only days away from seeing all three of his sons restored,  plus all of his natural needs being met until the famine was over.

When we face challenges in life that are beyond our ability to control we should remind ourselves that we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

2)     WAIT ON THE LORD.

·      The Hebrew word for “wait” in Psalm 27 means to hold tightly to God and He will strengthen us like the braids of a rope being twisted and intertwined together.  This goes along with the Romans 8 scripture that tells us “all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose”.  In this verse, the “all things” are like the braids of a rope.  God is able to twist and braid the happening around us and form them into a strong rope that can rescue us from whatever pit we find ourselves in. 

In Isaiah 40:31 it speaks that those who wait upon the Lord will see their strength renewed.   The word “renewed” means “to exchange”.  Through Christ, we exchange our ashes for beauty, our sorrow for joy, our weakness for strength, and our defeat for victory. 

3)     STRENGTHEN YOUR HEART.

·      Those who are discouraged or broken in spirit must find a way to strengthen their heart.  One way we do this is by going to the Rock who is higher than we are.  He has a better vantage point and can see what we don’t.

I remember when evangelist Bill Wilson visited the church we attended while at Christ For the Nations in the early 80’s.  He was the guest speaker on a Sunday morning and was very inspiring as he shared the way God was using him to reach hundreds in the inner city of New York.  One of the stories Bill told was about a challenging time in his ministry when he walked out of his apartment building only to have a young man hit him in the eye with a brick he had thrown.  The wound nearly took his eye out and caused blindness in that eye.  This was the final blow of many that caused him to want to quit his ministry and move out of New York City.  As he returned home from the hospital with his eye patched up he lay down at night for bed.  He had decided that when he awakened the next morning he would make his way to the leaders of his ministry and formally resign.  As Bill rose from his bed that morning, to his amazement, his eye was healed and his eyesight completely restored!  God has ways of strengthening our hearts. 

When King David was about to be stoned by his own men in Ziklag we are told that “he found strength in the Lord his God”.  (I Samuel 30:6)  It is very important that we discover the keys to unlock the storehouse of God and tap into His supernatural strength.  It may be through praise and worship, taking long walks in a peaceful place, listening to faith-filled messages from anointed servants of God, or simply locking ourselves in our prayer place at home and reminding ourselves of how God has been faithful to us in times past. 

Take heart that Psalm 27:14 ends with, “He shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the Lord!”