Feeling Discouraged? Verses for Encouragement and FAITH

Hey friend.

I know what it feels like to do all. the. things. and yet, seem to be going nowhere. To focus, pour your heart into your work, and look up only to find that someone else has passed you by. Verses for Encouragement and Faith are waiting for you.

The definition of ‘discouragement’ is: Having lost confidence or hope, dejected; disheartened.

Are you in a season of lost hope? Low confidence? Feeling dejected or disheartened? Maybe you’re stuck in the awkward beginning or the messy middle. Or, you might be ready to give up.

Don’t.

The world wants to shake you, break you, and tear down your dreams. Your mind will waver and wonder ‘Can I really do this?’ ‘Who am I to…?’ ‘I should just give up?’ But something in your heart keeps pushing you. Holy Spirit keeps showing up and prompting you… just a little bit more. Keep going.

Breakthrough and kingdom glory is on THE OTHER SIDE of discouragement. It is on THE OTHER SIDE of fear. Sis, you have to rise up and FIGHT through the journey. No one gets to the top of a mountain without trudging through the valleys, mud, and rocks. Feeling discouraged is normal, but giving up is not an option. We are daughters of the King, anointed, appointed, and able.

I am praying for you.

God is with you. Listen in to today’s episode as I share some of my favorite verses for encouragement and FAITH in His plan.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00)
Hey, sweet friend. Today’s mini-sode is for you. If you are in a season of just feeling defeated. You feel like you’re doing everything possible and you just can’t break through. It’s heavy, you feel tired, you feel overwhelmed. You feel like no matter how hard you push, you’re still stuck. This one is for you. I know sweet friend, what it feels like to be discouraged, to feel like you need that encouragement.

(01:35)
I just I want to remind you that we have all the encouragement, all of the friendship that we might ever need, the support that we need right inside of scripture and inside of prayer. Today we’re just going to go through some different scriptures to talk about how to find that encouragement in a season of hard, beginning, messy, middle, getting nowhere fast, those moments of defeat, because it’s not easy and you are not alone.

(02:11)
Psalms 34:18 “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Your father, sweet friend, is near you. He is with you right now. And his hand is extended to you to pull you out of the darkness and to save you, to restore your crushed spirit. The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. We can rest in that promise today.

(02:41)
Jeremiah 29:11, one of my all time favorites “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future.” This verse does not say for YOU know the plans I have for you. It says for, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and what not harm you plans to give you hope and a future.

(03:11)
When we are on our road, it’s going to be discouraging. We were never promised that the road would be easy, that there would be no rocks rubble in the road. No obstacles for us to climb over. We were actually promised the opposite. If we look at Jesus’s walkout, we know that is going to be rough, rocky and hard, but the most incredible news of all in Jeremiah 29:11 is that the Lord knows his plans for you. You don’t have to know. We just have to keep walking in obedience, keep climbing, dust off our scraped, bloody knee throw a bandaid on there, girlfriend, get back up and keep on going.

(03:55)
Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord Your God will be with you wherever you go.” Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous, sisters. So as we are walking and we feel that heaviness, that defeat, that darkness, that moment when the world feels like it is crushing down on us, whether it be pain, confusion, an illness, a loss, frustration, we were hurt by someone else prior traumas in our lives. Whatever it might be, a business failure.

(04:37)
We have been commanded, be strong and courageous do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. The Lord, your God will be with you wherever we go. So when we go down into the depths, you know, when we’re like, okay, God, I’m down here. Everything is hard and rocky, and I don’t know how to climb up out of this black hole. He’s with us in that hole. There is no better place to be, sweet sister sweet friend, than in a hole with the Lord Almighty because he will make sure that we ultimately get out of that hole.

(05:13)
And we reached the light. We don’t know when, and we don’t know how, and we don’t have to know. All we have to know is this promise from Joshua 1:9, he will be with you wherever you go. Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” That means you can get up today and you can keep fighting. You can wake up today and you can put your eyes on him and say, God, move my feet today.

(05:45)
Give me the strength. Wipe this discouragement, this frustration, this pain. Wipe it from my mind, my heart and replace it with your promises that you will strengthen me like Philippians 4:13 says because I can do all things through you with your strength. Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean, not on your own understanding in all your ways, submit to him.

(06:18)
And he will make your paths straight.” Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean, not on your own understanding in all your ways, submit to him and he will make your paths straight. I don’t know about you, but I would love a straight path, clear prominent path to set my feet on, to set my compass on and to go. And this verse right here, Proverbs 3:5-6 promises me that if I do not lean on my own understanding, I do not feed my discouragement today. I do not feed my spirit of fear.

(06:59)
My spirit of control judgment. My spirits of not enough, my spirits of what someone else said about me and not what God says about me, but I let those things go. And I trust him with all my heart. Even though I cannot understand it because we have to have faith in things, unseen sweet sisters. And I submit, AKA surrender to his ways. Over my ways, my path will be straight. I’m here for that. How about you?

(07:35)
Psalm 56:3, “When I’m afraid, I put my trust in you.” Amen. 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we live by faith, not by sight.” For we live by faith, not by sight. When I think about my periods of discouragement, my seasons of hard, my seasons when life is not flowing, it often comes back to this verse right here. I’m looking for the answers, for an outcome, for a resolution.

(08:11)
I’m looking for a quick turnaround. I’m looking everywhere but up because when I stop looking and I start embodying and feeling faith, that season passes me by, that season washes away. My fear is replaced with peace. My wondering and wandering is replaced with strength, with a steadfast mindset and a solid trust that he’s got me. He’s got the situation, the business, the marriage, the kids, the debt, the illness. He’s got it all. When we live by faith and not by sight.

(09:02)
Matthew 19:26, “but Jesus looked at them and said with man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.” While you may be in a season of impossibility, he is a man of miracles. He’s a God, not a man. He’s a God of miracles– in an instant, in a snap of a fingers in one breath, it can be transformed. It being your situation.

(09:32)
The season, the pain gone, all things are possible with God. Are we trusting in the impossible, or are we trusting in the possible last one? 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Cast all your anxiety, your worries right there, let it go because he cares for you. He will bear the weight of that worry. You don’t have to. I don’t have to aim it. We just have to rest, find his rest. Welcome his rest. Live in his rest by renewing our mind daily with verses like this, with Bibles, with stories, with Godly mentors, trusting and knowing he is with us, wherever we go.

(10:26)
Father God, I pray over these amazing, incredible women that are listening to this show, this podcast that might listen today, tomorrow years to come, I pray that you would just wrap your arms around her in this season of discouragement, Father, in this season of hard pain loss, frustration, wondering that you would just put your incredible comforting arms around her and remind her.

(10:59)
You are in control that you have this situation, that you go, not just before her, but after her, that you are the beginning of the end and the everything and the Almighty and that you are omnipresent and you have every single thing figured out. And we don’t have to. We pray for your strength. As we fight through this season, as we push through discouragement, that you would break that spirit of discouragement over our lives here now in the name of Jesus and that it would be replaced and replenished with belief that the light is right here. We are already in it.

(11:38)
We are walking out the journey, the plans that you have for our lives. And we are excited. We have excited anticipation of what you’re going to do here. What’s next. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know what it looks like, but we know it’s right, because it’s yours and we are yours. Take us, take our surrender here and now take our surrender. Lay the path before our feet, Father, like you promise us in scripture, lay that path before our feet.

(12:09)
Set our eyes on the path and remove any obstacles so that we can walk it out with you. God, we love you. We trust you. Thank you for being so good, loving, and full of grace over our lives in Jesus name. Amen. If this podcast has blessed you in some way, the number one way you can thank me is to leave a written review for the show over on Apple podcasts. I seriously am lit up every time I hear from you guys, every time that I see that this show has impacted your life in some way.

(12:55)

If you’ll do that for me, I would be super grateful. The second thing you can do is take a screenshot of this episode or of your review and go share it in your Instagram stories and tag me @stefaniegass. I’ll share you in my stories and then together we can share the love. God bless you, Sis.