This Is Important for Your Discouraged Heart

Sometimes it feels like you’re praying for stars to align, but they’re not yours to tuck into place, not yours to coax with gentle words or ample encouragement. So you find yourself looking up at a light flecked sky, feeling small as you surrender yet again. You raise your hands and tilt your head back and gaze at the million places God’s already said He’s big enough, worthy enough, more than enough.

When light breaks and dims the stars, you lean on the people around you because we’ve all been in the spot where we need others to believe with and for us. We’ve been Moses, with failing strength, needing Aaron and Hurr to hold up his arms while God did His thing (Exodus 17). Truth is, we’re not strongest alone. We never were.

Truth is, we’re not strongest alone. We never were. (Twyla Franz quote)

It’s a ruse that we’re better off solo than accepting help. That we’re alone in our need to remember impossible’s not in God’s vocabulary. That we can press into His promises on our own.

When Hope Leaks

If I could I’d invite you to join me on the bench by a fountain where I sometimes pause during my morning walks. I’d ask you what feels like it’ll never-in-a-million-years happen. Where you’re praying for stars to line up just so. Because there are fissures running through our stories–places where hope leaks. None of us are exempt from discouragement. Doubt. Fear we can’t write a happy ending or guarantee how we’re received.

We’d listen to water pinprick the pond and talk the good and the bad: the cracks are necessary. Yes, they’re hard. They sear and scar us. But they also shape us. They bend our knees and prompt our prayers.

Without the fissures, we’d forget that God is kind, compassionate, and trustworthy. We’d take Him for granted, content in our independence, insistent on our invincibility.

As much as we want to feel comfortable, these seasons can cause us to wonder if God forgot about us. When life feels calm and quiet, we stop looking for Him and our ears stop perking up at the sound of His voice. Life the way we think we want it can make us numb to God’s presence and our need for Him.

Pain is a present, reminding us that we need God. Pulling us in tighter to Him and each other.

An Access Point

Let’s unwrap this a bit more. The weak spots—trust-needed zones—are how God gets in, and how He overflows through us. God needs an access point in order to fill us and ripple through our lives.

The very spots that deplete us of our rightness and self-sufficiency open us up to truth that frees and a God who redeems. The fractures sting, but they deflate pride, make more room for God inside. They help us get out of our own way so God can have His perfect way in us.

I’ve been one to pray it’s behind me soon. Figured out fast. Healed fully and speedily.

But that’s often not God’s way. He sees what’s beneath confident exteriors and denials of help. Knows where words have wedged then splintered. Where we’re rehashing the past or fearing the future.

Sometimes He lets us break so He can repair the breach, not in a quick-fix way but with patient, gentle care that heals through to the bone. He also nudges us toward each other as we mature in our faith.

Why? Because we seek reassurance that we’re not alone. We long to be held while we’re lending each other courage to try again, truth to combat false narratives we’ve adopted, and trust that God is more than able to make impossible things happen.

Here’s the thing: we get to prop up each other’s arms and encourage discouraged hearts and stand in solidarity. Our very presence becomes an anchor, tethering each other to hope that runs in abundance.

Here’s the thing: we get to prop up each other’s arms and encourage discouraged hearts and stand in solidarity. (Twyla Franz quote)

But we miss all that if we turn down the volume of our discontentment and pain. When we corral the dreams that feel scary big and the prayers we’re whispering at night, we cover up the access points that let God flow in and out of us. In dismissing the tensions and raw-edged questions, we erase opportunities to offer relevant hope and a compassionate hug.

Balm for Discouraged Hearts

Let’s take a closer look at Moses’s story. Exodus 17 finds the Israelites in the middle of a battle. Something startling is noted. Whenever Moses’s arms reach to the sky, they have the upper hand. The moment he drops his hands, the dynamic turns. As the day and battle grow long, Moses grows weary. That’s when Aaron and Hur encourage Moses to rest and let them carry the weight. They sit him on a stone and hold up his arms until the sun goes down and the battle is won.

In order for the story to unfold this way, several key things had to happen.

First, Moses admits that he’s powerless to control the outcome and honors God with his trusting obedience. He chooses simultaneous surrender and praise, lifting his hands towards heaven.

Second, his companions notice the need. They see how Moses’s strength is failing, and they step up to help.

Third, Moses accepts. He welcomes the help even though it highlights his vulnerability.

Which of these is hardest for you? Trusting God’s plan, covering for someone else, or accepting help?

I can hear the little voice in my head insisting that I can do it myself. Often I say “thanks but no thanks” outloud, Maybe you do too.

Slowly, I’m learning to get over my stubbornness and accept help. Let others rally around me and lift me up in prayer when I’m exhausted inside.

And I’m finding that these three steps, together, offer balm for our discouraged hearts. They root us in Christ and link our arms together, and then the cracks and crevices we name as broken become the very places God fills us with hope–hope for us and hope to share with each other.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, nothing is hidden from You. You know the depth of our discouragement and how long it’s lasted. Thank you that we don’t have to stay stuck. You turn sorrow into a spring of hope when we surrender, trust You, and lean on each other.

Just a friend over here in your corner,