Sheryl Brady - The Dangers of Discouragement

On your way down, just look at somebody and tell them the dangers of discouragement—the dangers of discouragement. Oops, um, I feel like everything’s a tad bit off up here, but somebody said, «Get it together, Pastor Brady.» I will. The Bible says to us in Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1, that there is a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven. Reading that scripture causes me to understand that life is, then, a series of seasons. If there’s a season for everything, there has to be a series of seasons in life. According to Daniel 2, verse 21, it tells us that God is the one who controls the times and the seasons. So now I know that life is a series of seasons, and the good thing about that is I know God is in charge; He is in control. I think that might be one of the reasons we have problems with seasons: because seasons feel like they’re out of our control. Whether you want to admit it or not, all of us, to some degree, are control freaks. We really are. We are creatures of habit because when we stay within our established habits and our little safety zones, it makes us feel safe. Many of us like sameness; we like things to be the same. When any kind of change comes along, it alarms us and jars us. But one common thread that all of us who are living today share is that we will all go through changes. It would be nice if we could just say, «Okay, I’ve come through my season of change; I never have to do that again.» But how many of you know it doesn’t work like that? Just when you tell God «yes» and you lay it all on the altar, here He comes asking you to do something else, and you find yourself needing to say «yes» to the Lord again. Why is change necessary? It takes different seasons in our lives for God to mold us and to make us. You won’t get out of this season; once you get out of that season, it’s seasons you have to go through. God said, «I’ll pull this out of you in this season,» and then when you go through that, «I’m going to get that out of your life.» But make no mistake about it: at the end of the day, God is in control, and we are not. I said, «God is in control, and we are not.» Seasons will come, seasons will go. Seasons are the doings and undoings of a sovereign God. Because He’s God and we are not, we don’t always understand why He does what He does, when, and how He does it. Just when you think you understand, you realize you don’t. You might think, «Okay, I thought I got it,» but now I see that there’s a reason for that: His ways are past finding out. Ooh, but the good hope and consolation we have come from the songwriter, for he said we’ll understand it better. Y’all remember that song? I grew up singing that in church: «By and by, when the morning comes, when all the saints of God are gathered home, we will tell the story of how we’ve overcome, and we’ll understand it better.» Oh, that’s so good for me to know. We will understand why we’ve been through what we’ve been through; we’ll all understand it better, but it won’t happen until by and by. So I have to trust that by and by, God will help me understand why my life has taken this course, why I’ve been through the things I’ve experienced, and why we have gone through a pandemic over the last 18 months. I have to trust that by and by, we will understand why we lost people we love, why people lost jobs, why we lost homes, and why so many are teetering on the brink of homelessness. By and by, we will understand better why we now have so many mental health issues to address. By and by, perhaps we’ll understand why we became discouraged and why depression is rising so quickly in America. It’s not only rising in adults, but it’s also rising in our children. I read last night that children who are of mixed race have higher rates of depression than just white or black children. When races mix, it raises their rates of depression—like I think it’s up maybe nine percent for one race, but it’s up twelve percent if you are of mixed race. So while there’s a lot that I don’t understand, what I do know is that COVID has contributed to us losing over four million people. Over four million people have died physically; that I do know. But what I’m not sure about is the cost that this has caused.