Hearing His Voice #310

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!

Psalm 42:5-6

The longing heart is, to some degree, a disappointed heart. In our search to know God and hear the sound of His voice, we admit that we aren’t satisfied with our current experience. We may be grateful for how He relates to us, but we want more. A taste of God is not enough.

It’s one thing to long for God, another to live in discouragement about His seeming absence or unavailability. Longing can be filled either with hope or with doubt, and far too often we settle for low expectations. We may not even know why; we just assume the worst. We’ve let past disappointments color our outlook.

God has given us the ability to choose our own posture. Like the psalmist, we can speak to our own souls, asking penetrating questions of our emotional tendencies and commanding ourselves to hope in God and praise Him. We aren’t victims of our moods; we’re their masters. We may submit to them when we don’t realize our other options, but we really can make conscious decisions to believe, trust, hope, expect God’s goodness, reject doubt, forsake despair, and overcome fears. We don’t have to live in the discouragement that so often plagues us. We can take our eyes off of our circumstances and fix them on God’s track record. We can choose our internal environment.

Most people would agree with that, but few practice it. Be different. Talk to your heart and tell it what to believe. Don’t let visible circumstances or past disappointments negatively shape your faith. Discouragement and dread are negative forms of faith, statements that God might not come through. But He does. Sooner or later, He fulfills hope. He will satisfy your longing heart and meet your pressing needs.

Father, I need You so desperately, yet I expect You to remain distant. Why is my soul so discouraged? Expose my heart for the lies it embraces. I choose to hope in You—in everything, for everything, and for always.