"Have You Got Your Courage Back Yet?" she says

Discouragement!

Dis... Courage... ment.

Last week I was experiencing it.

I think it is one of our enemy's favorite tools.

I never understood why discouragement is such a debilitating emotion. I often feel paralyzed when I am discouraged. I never understand why it's always so hard to shift weight from the butt to the feet and thrust pressure downward to rise up off the couch in the midst of discouragement. It just seems almost impossible.

Last week my upper body weighed about 400 pounds in the middle of a bout with the circumstances of life. My wife took off for a walk with the kids. I sat unable... or unwilling, I'm not sure which... to rise and dive back into the rest of my day.

When I found the will to do so, I headed out the front door and into my transporter to be thrust off into another galaxy with unknown obstacles and dangerous objects thrusting toward my heart at the speed of light. I saw Julie walking back toward the house and throttled in her direction to say goodbye. I rolled

down my window and she said...

"Have you got your courage back yet?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "If you're dis

-couraged, you just need to get your courage back." she smiled.

It was one of those dangerous objects I was mentioning earlier, but it only had power over my heart to waken it back into the reality that "He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world." It was a laser beam pointed to the head of the enemy instead of the heart of this wounded warrior.

For the first time in my life I realized that the emotion that paralyzes me into uselessness has at it's root a lack of courage to rise up against the battle that rages against the Kingdom.

Since that day, I've found myself discouraged a few times. The first thought passing through my mind is the voice of my precious wife saying, "Have you got your courage back yet?"

“In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing” -Vincent Van Gogh

"No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous."

-God to Joshua when he was tagged as the leader of a nation of rebels and felt incapable of the task of leading them into the promises of God (Joshua 1:5-7)