Discouraging

What’s holding you back? Could it be the fear of failing? Or failing again? Maybe you were serious about your walk with Christ and made progress…for a while. But then life got in the way, and you fell back into the same old habits. Now you are thinking, “What’s the use? I don’t want to fail again.” “I don’t want to make commitments I can’t keep.” “I don’t want to start something I can’t finish.” “I don’t want to get hurt in another relationship.” “I don’t want to disappoint God…again.”

It was a particularly hot day in Dallas, and I was driving around the city looking for an apartment. I had just graduated from seminary, and my wife and I needed to move from the condo we had rented for four years. I had resumes scattered throughout the country but was getting no response, or rather I was getting the same response—“No.” Lori and I thought we would be looking for a place to live in a new city, but instead, we were staying in Dallas. It was a discouraging stretch of my journey.