10 Bible Verses to Conquer Spiritual Discouragement
Our interior state can be compared to the weather that is constantly changing. One day, you awake and there is sunshine streaming through your window pane; the birds are singing joyful songs of praise; the blue sky and gentle breeze lift your heart. Still more: everybody seems to have a winning smile. It all seems to be the portal of Heaven.
Then the following day presents to you a gray, drizzly morning; the sun totally hidden behind the clouds. The cold and chilly winter air seems to penetrate your whole being to your very bones. Gray, dark, ominous clouds hover over you, ready to envelop and engulf you in their dreary chill. Crossing the street, a car honks loudly at you and the angry driver has his fist raised on high to let you know his feelings! Everybody hurries on to their daily activities, oblivious to the fact that you even exist. Everything is gray, dreary, cold, chilly, crude and cruel, sad and desolate. In the words of T.S. Elliot, life seems to be a Waste Land and you are immersed in a dense fog!
Part of being human means being exposed to the constant reality of both consolation and desolation. One of the most clear manifestations of desolation is the temptation to give in to discouragement.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his classical text The Spiritual Exercises, offers this explanation for the state of desolation:
“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite of what is described in the third rule, as darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love, the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord. For just as consolation is the opposite of desolation, so the thoughts that spring from consolation are the opposite of those that spring from desolation.”
(Spiritual Exercises #317, Rule 4 of Rules for the Discernment of Spirits)
The thrust and purpose of this short essay is to help us to conquer the reality of desolation in our lives; specifically, that of giving into discouragement. We would like to offer ten encouraging Biblical passages that we invite you to immerse yourself in, especially when it seems as if the clouds are descending, the rain is beating against you, and you feel as if you are in a long, dark, and damp tunnel where there seems to be no way out!
