Arise, there’s a wonderful future ahead

Have you ever felt as though your hands were tied? Has it been one challenge followed by another? Now, are you yielding to fears and discouragement, thinking, “I don’t see how this circumstance can ever turn around?” Then, with hopelessness in your voice, you might throw up your hands and say, “I can’t do anything about it anymore,” until you concede to discouragement and get so depressed that you just quit.

I read in the Scriptures how Elijah, one of God’s greatest prophets, conceded to discouragement and became depressed. Elijah was not only the worker of miracles, but he also experienced one miracle after another. Elijah, a widow, and the widow’s son were provided for during the famine. Miraculously, Elijah raised the widow’s son from the dead, and the child was restored to life. God had sent ravens to feed Elijah. And Elijah prayed for a rainstorm that ended the drought.

Up until then, Elijah was the epitome of courage. So why would a man who had experienced some of the most powerful displays of God’s power be crippled by negativity, fear and hopelessness?

Unable to regain control of his emotions and in the depths of despair, Elijah was physically and emotionally broken down and fragile. He wasn’t eating. And with a self-focused perspective, he was drowning in self-pity.

Depressed about himself and his work, Elijah isolated himself from other people. The more depressed he got, the less he wanted to be around anyone. He had no strength. He was battling to maintain his faith. Feeling a deep sense of failure, although there was no truth to it, Elijah thought that his best days were over. As fog veils a beautiful countryside, Elijah’s depression clouded life itself. Seeing no way out of his situation, he was ready to quit and wanted his life to end, uttering, “I’ve had enough, Lord.” (1 Kings 19: 4, 5)

But when God is in charge, there is always hope. God had a restoration plan. Interestingly enough, God gave Elijah a prescription to deal with his depression.

Patient and gracious, God needed Elijah to avoid false assumptions, to stop crying over the past and to stop running away from his present. And today, perhaps, God is saying the same thing to you. You’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to give up on the desires of your heart now. Keep going forward and do not underestimate what God can do. Even if the odds are stacked against you, don’t give up on life for God is not finished with you yet. And like Elijah, you’ll regain your strength and

you’ll continue to do your God-given work.

So my encouragement today is: Arise, there is a wonderful future in store for you. Be set free from wrong ideas and mindsets. Look ahead. Stretch forward toward a new day and thank God for all you have going for you. The Apostle Paul used a runner’s analogy to put the past and future in their proper perspective. Paul had many struggles and afflictions. Yet, God brought him through each one successfully. Paul writes in Philippians 3:13, 14, “but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.”