How do you move past discouragement, the kind strong enough to slow you right down and stop you in your tracks. At some point, every person tastes some measure of discouragement, in relationships, marriage, parenting; discouragement in one’s progress toward holiness; discouragement in the workplace; in the church. And your discouragement chips away at your motivation to work at these things. Discouragement can be quite crippling.
Florence Chadwick once tried to swim twenty-six miles of the Pacific Ocean, from Catalina Island to the California coast. After sixteen hours in icy, shark-infested waters, surrounded by fog, she quit. It was not until she was pulled into the boat that she realized she was less than half a mile from shore. The next day she said, All I could see was fog. I think if I could have just seen the shore, I would have made it.
Two months later, she tried again. She made it. When asked how she made it this time, she said, I kept in my mind an image of the shore.
Discouragement is the background to this text. Both the leaders and the people are tempted to quit. But the Lord responds. Not with sympathy. But with the inspiring image. In order to shrink their discouragement, he says, My glory is ahead of you.
1 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet,