| Things to Live For |
Chapter 11 |
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A feeling of discouragement creeping into our heart should be met, therefore, as a temptation. He who opens to it, and lets it in, does not know to what sin and sorrow it may lead him. An example will help us to understand the peril of discouragement. A fragment of old history tells us of the Israelites, that at a certain time they were much discouraged because of the way.
The way itself was indeed hard, rough, and dreary, leading through the sandy Arabah, where the heat was intense, with no shelter anywhere from the sun’s fierce, smiting rays. It was discouraging also because it was a sudden interruption of their journey. When they were at the very gate of the Promised Land, a barrier was thrown across their path, and they were compelled to make a long detour through an inhospitable wilderness, instead of entering at once into the country toward which for so long their hopes had been leading them. What made it all so much worse was the needlessness of it, but for Edom’s disobligingness. Edom would not allow his brother to pass through his country to reach his own land. Indeed, he said that if he attempted to pass he would resist him with armed force. It certainly was very discouraging to be treated so by a brother.
We are scarcely surprised that the Israelites were discouraged, and yet we must read the story through to see to what the discouragement led. They murmured against God and against Moses. Then murmuring grew into profane contempt of God’s mercy and goodness, and to the grievous sin of rebellion. It is when we follow it to its final outcome that we see the true nature of discouragement.
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