Discouragement
One
Reaching, but not entering, the Promised Land
A lot of people know that the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years before entering the promised land. But what most people don’t know, is that they actually reached the promised land decades earlier. They made it through the desert, they reached their destination, only, they didn’t get in. They had to turn around and wander aimlessly in the desert until forty years had passed.
And here’s the crazy thing: God wanted to get them out of the desert and into the promised land but they just wouldn’t go. It’s an incredible, crazy story. It’s a story about how discouragement and overconfidence prevented the Israelites from entering the promised land. And it’s a story that matters to us because discouragement and overconfidence are the two things that can keep us out of heaven.
Two
Discouragement
In the Book of Numbers, chapter thirteen, the Israelites finally reach the promised land. God has brought them out of Egypt with mighty works, He has given them the Ten Commandments written in stone, and He has provided for them through the desert with miracles of bread from heaven, water from the rock, and impossible flocks of quail flooding the barren waste.
God has done all this for them. And now He has brought them to the promised land. And here’s the amazing part, the people refuse to enter! Why? Why would they leave Egypt, march through the desert, and then refuse to enter the land of milk and honey?
The answer: because they’re intimidated by the challenge before them. There are too many Canaanites guarding the land, too many and too powerful. The people start to grumble. They start to lose it. It’s too hard, they say. They’ll never succeed. This was a bad idea in the first place! They should never have left Egypt! It would have been better if they’d just died out in the desert.
Some of the people loyal to Moses and the Lord, people like Joshua and Caleb, they try to reason with everybody. They say, “Listen, who cares how many people there are, or how big they are? We have God on our side! If He says we can do this, then we can do this!” But the pep talk doesn’t work. The people are determined to quit. It’s not just that they are discouraged, it’s that they are determined to give in to discouragement. They have decided to despair.
And so right there, right at the borders of the promised land, the Israelites give up and forfeit their happiness.
Three
God Won’t Force You Into the Promised Land
Now there are a lot of people out there who think that, no matter what, God will make sure everybody gets into heaven. But the story of the Israelites in Numbers 13 shows that this just isn’t true. Because God didn’t force His people to go into the promised land. In fact, God says to them, “Fine. You don’t want to enter the promised land? You’d rather die in the desert? That’s your choice.”
And all the people who said they’d rather die in the desert, all the people twenty years or older, would spend the next forty years in the desert wandering and dying off. None of them would get into the promised land.
Do you see how deadly discouragement can be? If you give in to discouragement, you will quit trying to get into heaven. And if you quit trying to get into heaven, God won’t force you into heaven.
So what’s the takeaway? Fight discouragement! No matter how big your sins, your vices, your temptations. No matter what kind of mess you’ve made of your life up till now. Don’t give up! You have God on your side! Keep trying to follow your instructions, and you will eventually conquer any giants you need to face. For the Lord has promised it, and the Lord is mighty even if we are weak.
Four
Overconfidence in Ourselves
But it’s not just discouragement that can destroy us. It’s also overconfidence in ourselves. After Moses delivers God’s judgment and tells the people that since they’ve chosen the desert, the desert is what they’ll get, after Moses delivers the message, the people quickly change their tune. They say, “Okay, okay, we’ll attack! We’ll go up into Canaan! We changed our minds!”
And Moses says, “What are you doing? This will not work. The Lord is not on your side; do not march to the attack, or you will be overcome by your enemies. The Lord will not take part with men who have refused him obedience” (Numbers 14:41ff).
But the foolish people, who just a little while before thought they would be defeated even with God’s help, now think that they can be victorious even without God’s help. Which is absurd. With God’s help, we can achieve anything in the spiritual life. And without God’s help, we will achieve absolutely nothing. So the people try to get into the promised land on their own, just based on their own strength and character and, surprise, surprise, they are soundly defeated.
This is what complacency means, it means thinking that you’re good enough as you are. It’s thinking you can get into heaven, that you have what it takes, even though you are consistently living without God and even against God’s explicit instructions. And it doesn’t work. Sin doesn’t get into heaven. And unless we keep at the colossal work of getting rid of our sins, which can only be accomplished with God’s help, we won’t get into heaven either.
Five
Hope, the Goal, and Not Giving In
The goal of the Israelites’ journey was the promised land. Our goal is heaven. And the virtue of Hope is the virtue whereby we keep striving, keep trying to get into heaven by following God’s instructions. The two things that kill hope, that kill our spiritual progress, and that will eventually kill our chances of salvation, are despair and presumption.
Despair means giving into discouragement and giving up. Presumption means just being satisfied with who we are, and what we can do on our own.
So what we have to do, almost the only thing we have to do, is to keep trying to progress in the spiritual life. Keep trying to follow the commandments and Jesus’s words and the moral teaching of the Church. And even if it looks impossible, even if the challenges seem too many, or too big, keep trying. Because God is on our side, and if we do as He asks, we can achieve anything. Which means we can become saints.
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
When you feel like giving up, consider how close you might be to the finish line.
If you feel like you would be better off pursuing some goal without God, think of the Israelites and remember that if we’re meant to accomplish it, we will accomplish it with Him.