We've got the Wrong Focus Point
Discouragement is unbiased in whose door it knocks at. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, smart, successful, male, female, young, or old. It loves to share it's self with anyone who opens the door.
Discouragement also comes in all shapes, sizes, forms, etc. It, however, does not look the same to everyone. It doesn't have a set schedule either. So, don't expect at age 20 or 45 to have discouragement show up just because it did for a friend, or neighbor, or relative. Time means nothing to discouragement; it comes and goes as it please, and sometimes it can stay for days, weeks, or months.
Now I said it just shows up; I might have lied a little bit. You see discouragement comes from something else; we just don't notice it till it's too late.
Now you're thinking thanks for that. Set us up for nothing. Not quite. You see there is a fore runner to this unwanted guest we tend to overlook.
When we choose to stay in that place of disappointment, we move toward the door of discouragement. We focus more on those dark places and forget that we don't have to OPEN the door. Fun fact, like those vacuum sales people that come to the door every so often. You can pretend not to be home when discouragement comes a knocking.
This is not easy to do though. I 100% know this because I am living in a place a disappointment right now. It feels as if everything I do backfires or I have this expectation of how it should go and it doesn't. I end up feeling disappointed. I have found myself in the perpetual spiral of only seeing disappointment after disappointment to the point where I have opened the door for discouragement to come through.
I serve up at a camp for the summer. I have been doing it for a long time. It is something that I look forward to each year because I am so passionate about what happens there. Well, I had a set idea of how things were to go, and that is definitely NOT how life unfolded this year. I got there and found out I wasn't doing most of the things I was used to doing which was totally fine, but still was a little disappointing since I loved doing them. Then as the week progressed little things caused more disappointment to occur. Then I slowly, unconsciously just expected to be disappointed and couldn't see all the good that was occurring, or that I could HAVE been doing. I instead opened the door for discouragement and just got upset about the situation. I let myself sit in that place rather than finding other ways to be helpful and optimistic. Looking back, I could have used all that extra free time I had to check on staff and make sure they were ok. Or connected with some of the campers, but I had opened the wrong door and threw a pity party instead because that was/is the natural response.
Instead I should have combated the disappointment with something else, with hope. The unnatural response. For those of you that have this natural ability to just be hopeful all the time, you probably think it is natural. Well you are right in your case. It has become the natural response to your reaction to disappointment. It hasn't all the time for me and maybe some others of you. I am learning to make it my natural response.
I was just meet with needing to find a new place to live in a short amount of time. And instead of having a major panic attack and just succumbing to fear and disappointment from all the no space available answers. I continue to hope that something will come up in my favor. That God will provide something for me. I'd rather hope and feel joy than be down in the dumps and upset. I have to take it in stride and one day at a time. Now this doesn't mean I won't be disappointed again. That is bound to happen and I will accept that when it comes, however, I won't sit and sulk in it all the time. I may have days where I focus on it for too long, but I am choosing not to live in that place. I don't want to keep answering the door every time discouragement comes knocking. I'd rather just ignore the door when it comes. Discouragement can just stand out in the cold.
Discouragement also comes in all shapes, sizes, forms, etc. It, however, does not look the same to everyone. It doesn't have a set schedule either. So, don't expect at age 20 or 45 to have discouragement show up just because it did for a friend, or neighbor, or relative. Time means nothing to discouragement; it comes and goes as it please, and sometimes it can stay for days, weeks, or months.
Now I said it just shows up; I might have lied a little bit. You see discouragement comes from something else; we just don't notice it till it's too late.
Now you're thinking thanks for that. Set us up for nothing. Not quite. You see there is a fore runner to this unwanted guest we tend to overlook.
Discouragement comes from Disappointment.
How? Well when we feel disappointment after disappointment, we end up just expecting to be disappointed. When disappointment happens repeatedly, our hearts can grow sick and our thoughts can grow dark. We begin to focus on being disappointed instead of virtually anything else. When we turn on focus onto disappointment we stop focusing on what we should focus on instead.
"Disappointment is a place we pass through, not a place we stay."
-Christine Caine.
When we choose to stay in that place of disappointment, we move toward the door of discouragement. We focus more on those dark places and forget that we don't have to OPEN the door. Fun fact, like those vacuum sales people that come to the door every so often. You can pretend not to be home when discouragement comes a knocking.
This is not easy to do though. I 100% know this because I am living in a place a disappointment right now. It feels as if everything I do backfires or I have this expectation of how it should go and it doesn't. I end up feeling disappointed. I have found myself in the perpetual spiral of only seeing disappointment after disappointment to the point where I have opened the door for discouragement to come through.
I serve up at a camp for the summer. I have been doing it for a long time. It is something that I look forward to each year because I am so passionate about what happens there. Well, I had a set idea of how things were to go, and that is definitely NOT how life unfolded this year. I got there and found out I wasn't doing most of the things I was used to doing which was totally fine, but still was a little disappointing since I loved doing them. Then as the week progressed little things caused more disappointment to occur. Then I slowly, unconsciously just expected to be disappointed and couldn't see all the good that was occurring, or that I could HAVE been doing. I instead opened the door for discouragement and just got upset about the situation. I let myself sit in that place rather than finding other ways to be helpful and optimistic. Looking back, I could have used all that extra free time I had to check on staff and make sure they were ok. Or connected with some of the campers, but I had opened the wrong door and threw a pity party instead because that was/is the natural response.
Instead I should have combated the disappointment with something else, with hope. The unnatural response. For those of you that have this natural ability to just be hopeful all the time, you probably think it is natural. Well you are right in your case. It has become the natural response to your reaction to disappointment. It hasn't all the time for me and maybe some others of you. I am learning to make it my natural response.
I was just meet with needing to find a new place to live in a short amount of time. And instead of having a major panic attack and just succumbing to fear and disappointment from all the no space available answers. I continue to hope that something will come up in my favor. That God will provide something for me. I'd rather hope and feel joy than be down in the dumps and upset. I have to take it in stride and one day at a time. Now this doesn't mean I won't be disappointed again. That is bound to happen and I will accept that when it comes, however, I won't sit and sulk in it all the time. I may have days where I focus on it for too long, but I am choosing not to live in that place. I don't want to keep answering the door every time discouragement comes knocking. I'd rather just ignore the door when it comes. Discouragement can just stand out in the cold.
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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