MUSINGS

OVERCOMING DESPONDENCY There are probably times with every believer, including those who desire to serve the Lord, when, due to difficult circumstances, isolation, or apparent lack of results—though there has been prayer and labour—a little despondency comes in. It is then that mettle is called for. Can we continue in faithful committal, leaving the results with God? At such times we need to make way for the Holy Spirit’s strengthening.

He would produce in us some correspondence with the spirit of Jesus seen in Isaiah 49: 4—“I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God” (the original word used for ‘work’

means ‘exhausting labour’).

What it must have meant to Paul, in prison in Rome, awaiting his trial, to know that all in Asia had turned away from him (2 Timothy 1: 15). But was he giving up? No, he was continuing to the end in the confidence that “The Lord shall deliver me from every wicked work, and shall preserve me for his heavenly kingdom; to whom be glory for the ages of ages. Amen” (2 Timothy 4: 18). So Paul, valiant warrior and faithful servant, continued and strengthened his beloved child Timothy to pursue steadfastly in the steps of his spiritual father, reminding him that “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion” (2 Timothy 1: 7).

FCM