Deuteronomy 1:32 Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God
If you find yourself discouraged today, there may be good reasons for that and you probably find yourself in good company. There are physical, mental, and spiritual reasons which can be contributors to discouragement. As to the physical, Vince Lombardi famously said that fatigue makes cowards of us all. If I am worn down and tired, that can contribute to my discouragement. If I have loss of courage, that is discouragement. The way I think about things is a mental factor. Spiritually, Israel was discouraged when coming to the land of Canaan because of their relationship to God. Ultimately there is a part of discouragement that is a choice. Who are you going to listen to?
In Deuteronomy 1:8 God said, “Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.” Subsequently, they sent spies into the land to see what lay ahead. The spies came back with a generally bad report. They said it was a good land, but there were giants and walls that they could not defeat. In consequence, verse 32 says of Israel, “Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God.” They were discouraged because they disbelieved, and that led to disobedience.
The fact is that it wasn’t purely disbelief that was the problem. It was simply believing the wrong people. God had said, “I will go with you. I have given you this land. Go and possess it as I have commanded you.” The spies said, “I don’t know what God said, but we can’t do it.” There is always a reason to disobey. In verses 25-26 the Bible says, “It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us. Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God.” There is always a reason to disobey; there are giants, walls, and so on.
So, you have the word of God and you have the word of the spies. The question is, “To whom are you going to listen?” We live in a very noisy world and most of us have more input from more sources than we are even aware of, whether it is podcasts, music, or friends. There is a lot of input, and unless we are listening to God and believing Him, we are going to believe a lie. Discouragement is fundamentally listening to the wrong voice. It is listening to the wrong people. How does this happen?
First, discouragement questions God. In verse 27 Moses said, “Ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt.” Nothing could be further from the truth. God had freed them from slavery and Egypt and provided in every way, yet they misattributed and misunderstood what was happening. They did not trust God and they questioned God and His motives. They said that God brought them out of Egypt to kill them. Why would they believe that? They were questioning God and did not trust His direction. Oftentimes, discouragement is listening to the wrong voices so that we question God.
Second, discouragement compares others. Verse 28 says “Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we.” Greater is a word of comparison. It continues, “The cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims [giants] there.” Whenever you compare yourself to other people, you have your focus on the wrong element. Who is bigger, you or the giants? The giants are, but the real question is, “Who is bigger, the giants or God?” So, who is bigger? Who are you looking at? Discouragement is listening to the wrong voices. It questions God and compares others.
Ultimately, discouragement forgets what is relevant. In verse 29 Moses said not to dread or be afraid of the giants for “the LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.” Moses referenced what God often brought up to Israel, the time God brought them out of Egypt, the way He provided food from heaven, the way He parted the Red Sea and defeated the armies of Pharaoh. So, discouragement is remembering the wrong things.
All of us have bad things in our past, failures. If we choose to look at our past and see only those defeats, then we are going to look ahead and see only danger. We should look back at our lives and say, “Wow, that was God.” I am not talking about making up something that isn’t true, but acknowledging what is true. God was there. God led. God provided. God protected. Israel would be crossing Jordan, but they had already crossed the Red Sea. What was ahead was seen in light of what they remembered from what came before. These people were discouraged. They were listening to the wrong voice. Today you have a choice. You can listen to God, trusting His provision, direction, and protection, or you can listen to other voices that tell us why we cannot do what we should do.
Today, ask God to help you trust, act, and recall what matters in your life. Trust God. Act on His guidance. Recall what He has done for you in the past. Discouragement is simply listening to the wrong voice.