Torch, Summer 1986

Of Mountains and Valleys by Dr. Paul Dixon H ow are you today, brother? Great! Super! Fantastic! Tremendous! Out of Sight! Really? All the time? I doubt it. Life isn't one long mountaintop experience, and our God never promised that everything would always be great . He assures us of trials and valleys. The Christian life has its surprises, its downers, its times of disappointment, defeat, and discouragement. Too often the Christian community carries out this facade and puts on this positive veneer to the disservice of themselves and to the discredit of their Lord. Some years ago my son Scott and I were watching a national television evangelistic outreach conducted by a well known evangelical organization. Politicians, athletes, and television personalities gave their testimonies of receiving Christ and related how wonderful the Christian life was. An invitation to repent of sin and trust Christ by faith was extended to those watching. At the conclusion of the telecast Scott turned to me and asked, "Dad, how are people who respond positively to that invitation to receive Christ going to handle it when they face trouble in their Christian lives?" Good question! They had just heard an unrealistic portrayal of Christianity. David became so discouraged that he prayed that he might have a dove's wings to fly away from it all . Jeremiah reached such depths of spirit that he cried, "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men ." Is it any wonder that Jeremiah was discouraged - considering the crowd God gave him to work with. Most of the problems that get us down are people problems . As one wag stated, "If there weren't any people, there wouldn't be any problems." Because of Jezebel, the prophet Elijah asked God to kill him. History reveals that some of the greatest saints had fits of discouragement and depression. C.H. Spurgeon had a tremendously sensitive spirit and a bad case of the gout that caused him to leave the pulpit in depression for weeks and even months. In his diary David Brainerd reveals discouragement over his own spiritual inadequacies as well as the behavior of others . Rabbi Harold S . Kushner wrote a best selling book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People; the sequel is entitled When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough. He argues that to live is to face pain and discourage– ment. "To be alive is to feel pain, and to hide from pain is to make yourself less alive." Kushner reveals that after John F. Kennedy was shot, a tearful Daniel Patrick Moynihan was heard to say , "When you are Irish , you learn that sooner or later this world will break your heart." The Christian must face this same world with its hurts and pain-producers . There will be times of disappointment, defeat, and discouragement. The difference is that we have our God as the great Encourager. He is sovereign and has a purpose for allowing the painful experiences as well as the joyful ones . 3