“How to Combat Doubt, Discouragement, and Distraction”

Monday, June 01, 2020

Sunday morning we considered how a bunch of merchants, goldsmiths, perfumers, priests, and governors including men, women, and children joined together to rebuild a wall in ruins in the face of doubt and discouragement in Nehemiah 3 and 4. This story is instructive for us as we consider our own mission and the work God is accomplishing through us in the world. Here are 5 things we can do to combat discouragement, distraction, and doubt:

1. Take the lens off yourself. What inherent skill or ability did some businessmen, some religious workers, some department store employees, and community officials (to translate their occupations to the 21st century) to construct a wall that wouldn’t collapse on itself (Neh. 4;3)?! These were not construction workers, architects, or stonemasons. What chance did they have at success? They understood, what we desperately need to grasp: prosperity in our efforts depends on God (Neh. 2:20; 4:14, 15, 20). If our success in our mission hinges solely or primarily on our own ability or resources that is a pretty despairing place to be if we are department store employees tasked with building a fortified wall. Our perspective must not be on what we can’t do but in what He CAN do. Now, this is not to say that we don’t try to improve our resources or abilities to be better equipped for the work- indeed the people didn’t JUST pray that the work would get done they also got busy- but it is to say that our focus and our lens needs to be more on God and less on self. Praying for the mission is a great way to shift our focus from ourselves to our God (Neh. 4:9). Additionally, reading God’s word and reflecting on how He has worked in the past will give us confidence that He will continue to work in our present and future (Neh. 4:14). Perhaps, we ought to find a “mission motivation” verse or passage that encourages us to engage in the work. Memorize it. Internalize it. Recite it often. 
2. Block out sources discouragement. For whatever reason, it is the voices that vomit negativity that tend to echo loudest in our heads. Therefore, like the people in Nehemiah’s day, we must fight those voices back and block them out (Neh. 4:7-9). Again prayer is vital here as it severs as something of a barrier to insulate us from the negativity (Neh. 4:4-5, 9). But we might also need additional barriers of time and space between us and the negative voices (Neh. 4:13). We must resolve that we will not entertain those thoughts. We just don’t have the time or the energy to expend on those who are going to hinder us from our mission.
3. Join together with positive people. We won’t accomplish this work without the help of others who are at least as zealous and engaged, if not more so than we are. We must surround ourselves with people who have “a mind to work” (Neh. 4:6). With all of the negativity, we need some voices that will speak positivity into our circumstances. You know the type. They’re always able to put a positive spin on any situation. For these persons, it is more than a show of superficial spunk. It comes from a place of deep faith, one typically undergirded by a lifetime of experiences of God making something out of nothing.
4. Tap into your source of motivation. Perhaps the greatest counter to discouragement, aside from trusting in God, is to remind ourselves why we are engaging in the mission in the first place. For the wall workers, it was to protect their “brothers, their sons, their, daughters, their wives, and their homes” (Neh. 4:14). Our motivation is often much the same. The reason we engage in the mission of disciples making disciples is so that those we love, our friends, our family, our co-workers, and the people we don’t yet know but love all the same will know the peace, joy, love, hope, and blessings that we experience as children of God. Further, we engage in the mission because it is the means by which we begin to transform our families, our communities, and the world around us. Finally, we engage in the mission because through it, God’s wisdom and love are demonstrated and glorified. Perhaps it would be a good idea to write down personalized forms our motivation on a sticky note and place them on the front of our bibles or the corner of our screens, set reminders on our phones, or put them on our walls. Something to keep it in front of us always.
5. Strategize. In addition to blocking our sources of doubt, discouragement, and distraction in the moment, Nehemiah also had a strategy to combat these going forward (Neh. 4:15-23).  Putting all of this together, perhaps our strategy might look something like: “next time I face discouragement I will 1) stop and pray immediately 2) recite my “mission motivation” verse 3) get away from the source of discouragement 4) reach out to a positive source of encouragement 5) remind myself of why I’m engaging in the mission.

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