Discouragement—Arrogance

Discouragement—Arrogance

People swing between these two poles. If things are going badly, they are drawn like a compass needle to the pole of discouragement, and when things are going well, they are drawn to the pole of arrogance.

If people fail miserably, they are tempted to give up; they are even tempted to think that nothing is or will ever become of them, that it will never succeed for them. I can well remember that I wished to be dead when I was in that state.

If it succeeds more and more, the person is tempted to think that he is something special. Then he is also tempted to compare himself to other people in order to find out that, even if things are going well with them too, it is still only trifles compared to his own greatness and his own achievements. If it succeeds further for him, he continues to be tempted until in the end he thinks that he is greater, stronger, and wiser than all the rest. What a terrible end! Then his downfall has also been firmly sealed.

The norm in a person’s Christian life should be that in the beginning he is tempted to be discouraged, and then to be arrogant. Yet many people are tempted to be discouraged as long as they live, while others are tempted to be arrogant from the beginning, all according to a person’s character and how he is doing in the earthly and in the spiritual realm.

The ideal would be not to lose courage when it is going badly, always firmly expecting God’s help in succeeding to do His will in every detail and in overcoming all sin, even if it should take ever so long.

When it succeeds admirably for a person so that he always overcomes, and when God uses him to do great things in His kingdom, it is exemplary for him to be absolutely lowly in his own eyes, being fully convinced that his success is exclusively by God’s grace, and that without this grace he is totally helpless and insufficient to do anything good, so that he wholeheartedly continues to give God all the glory and praise, and abstains from comparing himself to others since that is a snare of the devil for planting arrogance. The person who is devout understands this while others are caught in this snare.

When a soul is successful, there are always some who are foolish enough to flatter him, thereby putting snares in his way. The exemplary thing to do in such a case is never to lend your ear to it, but faithfully resist all such talk, without exception. Such things should rather be censured, for they are only works of darkness.

When it concerns discouragement, we keep it away by faithfully maintaining that it is God Himself who will help us and save us, and that He possesses the goodness, the strength, and the time to do it. It would be a different matter if we were to save ourselves; however, that is precisely what we shall not do.

In both cases—when a person fails and when he succeeds—we have to do one and the same thing, namely, ascribe glory and praise and power and wisdom and worship to God for time and eternity. Amen.