"God, I'm discouraged!"

In the Lord I take refuge. How then can you say to me, "Flee like a bird to your mountain..."? Psalm 11:1
 

A favourite Bible character of mine is Barnabas, whom we meet mainly in the Acts of the Apostles. He isn't one of the Bible's stars - he isn't up there with David or Moses or Paul or Peter. But he's an important person nonetheless; and the reason I like him is because of the nickname he earned in the early church: "Barnabas" means Encourager (Acts 4:36).

I believe that encouragement is one of the greatest things we can give to our fellow-Christians - indeed to anyone. I'm supposed to have a fairly confident personality, but, believe me, it's something I need on a regular basis! A child who is never praised will gradually wither and lose self-confidence, like a flower starved of the sun. And we adults aren't really that different, are we?

A simple word of thanks can change someone's whole day. A little quiet recognition of what someone is doing can mean the difference between success and failure. A positive, cheerful and optimistic spirit, based of course on a solid faith in the love of God, can lift a whole group - including a church. Are you a Barnabas, I wonder?

But, sadly, Barnabas has a brother (though I am making him up; he isn't actually mentioned in the Bible). His name is Discourager. He or she is the person who goes round spreading gloom and despondency, always seeing the worst rather than the best, for ever finding faults and problems, difficulties and impossibilities.

Well here in Psalm 11, sure enough, is Barnabas's brother. The writer is obviously having a problem with him. We find him protesting: "How can you say to me, 'Flee like a bird to your mountain'...?" In other words, How can you tell me to run away? Oh yes, it's something I would just love to do. But what sort of faith in God would that show? How can you urge me, in effect, to give up? Go away! Leave me alone!

I imagine every single one of us has felt from time to time the desire to run away, to stop fighting and trusting, to throw our hands in the air, to curl up into a ball, to close our eyes and hope that next time we open them our problems will have gone away. Of course! We are only human, after all. But it isn't the answer. Problems need to be confronted, difficulties overcome, with a combination of hard work, simple faith and sheer perseverance. Spiritual stickability, I sometimes call it.

The Psalmist may well be wobbling a bit, but he has got the right approach. "In the Lord I take refuge," he says - as if to say, I can curl up in God, thank you very much, so I don't need to be running away. In verse 4 he declares, with surely the psalm's key words, "The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne". As if to say: I know it doesn't seem particularly like it, but God is in control. So why should I give up? And how dare you tempt me to!

The fact is that the voice of Barnabas's brother is the voice of the devil. He loves to discourage God's people, whether individually or as a church. And the business of each of us, as people of faith, is to send him packing - as Jesus said to Simon Peter in a different context, "Get behind me, Satan!"

There's a legend (I'm not saying it's true!) that the reformer Martin Luther was once so angry with the devil for distracting him from his work that he launched his ink-pot at the spot on the wall where he thought he was lurking. Is it time you threw an ink-pot or two?
 
Psalm 11 - the picture of a man in crisis battling with discouragement - isn't very long. Why not take a few minutes to read it right through and to digest its message?

Lord God, please help me to challenge discouragement, whenever it rears its ugly head, by taking refuge in you. And please help me never to be a discourager of others. Amen.