A Letter from Heaven for the Discouraged Heart
Dear Child,
I know all that you are going through right now (Ps. 139:2-4) and I care (1 Pet. 5:7).
I was already loving you with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3) and choosing you before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). You can cry out to me about how disappointing your circumstances are right now (Ps. 31:9-10). You can tell me if I don’t feel close (Ps. 13:1). I want you to share with me, talk with me, come to me when you are weary and carrying heaviness (Matt. 11:28).
These past weeks have not been what you expected. They have brought deep challenges and little irritations. Many things have you feeling discouraged. You have faced isolation, confusion, close quarters, and the loss of many things.
You and those you care about have lost your work, lost money, lost people you love. You have lost opportunities for vacations, projects, and a hundred valuable face-to-face conversations. Yet, despite everything you have lost, you can still find me (Prov. 8:17).
It feels like discouragement is your shadow. When you’re diligent, it feels overwhelming. When you are inactive, it feels shameful.
Everywhere you turn, you face the discouragement of a situation you don’t want to be in. And you are unable to avoid the one person you wish could fix it all but can’t: yourself. You have a discouraged heart and you can’t fix it.
Child, that is why I come to you: to overcome the world (John 16:33), to overcome your flesh (Rom. 8:13), to overcome your sin (Rom. 6:14), and to give you a hope that is bigger and more solid than every disappointment (Heb. 6:19)
Look to me: I am your God and Father who has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Jesus (Eph. 1:3-10) and I am guarding your heavenly inheritance that no one can destroy (1 Pet. 1:3-5). I will reward you for loving others in my name (Matt. 10:42). And no matter what disappoints you right now, nothing compares with the splendor and comfort you will experience in my presence when it is all said and done (Rev. 21:1-5). You have heaven; trust me for earth.
But today, while it feels discouraging, know that I am the only one who fully knows how you feel (Heb. 4:15). That is where I am meeting you: in the middle of what you are experiencing, not after (Heb. 4:16). Keep trusting me, because I can be trusted (1 Pet. 2:23).
I am near to you in your broken-heartedness with these losses (Ps. 34:18); I am never going to leave you or forsake you (Heb. 13:5); and no sickness, circumstance, evil person, or spiritual enemy has the power to sever our relationship (Rom. 8:35-39).
Why is your soul discouraged? Hope in me, for you will again praise me, the one who utterly saves you and is your God (Ps. 42:11).
