Finding Hope and Comfort in Hard Times, Part 1

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe opens Psalms to share how the God of all comfort can refresh you when you're discouraged. That's coming up in just a moment, but first: Everyone experiences disappointments in life. And when things don't go the way we expect or desire, either tragically or in smaller ways, discouragement can become entrenched as we begin to believe destructive thoughts like, "It's always going to be this way," or "I'll never overcome this." And when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises. That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five-message series, Hope for the Disheartened. In it, Stuart and Jill help you discover why your hope must be tied to trusting God and reliant on His strength and timing. You'll learn that even in troubled times, you have a God who loves you and gives you every reason to look forward with unspeakable peace, hope, and joy. The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with today's message, Finding Hope and Comfort in Hard Times.
Jill Briscoe: Now, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the world needs encouragement. And one of my favorite books was this children's book which I carry with me everywhere, and I read it not along with my Bible, but it's up there: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. And if you have grandchildren, you need one of these to read often to your children. And it's a wonderful little book because this little kid needs encouragement, and he represents so many of us. It isn't just in the big things that we get down and hopeless; it's in the little things. He went to sleep with gum—I said, I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair. When I got out of bed this morning, I tripped on the skateboard. Breakfast, Anthony found a Corvette Stingray car kit in his breakfast cereal box, and Nick found a Junior Undercover Agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box, but in my breakfast cereal box, all I found was breakfast cereal. You know how that feels. He needed encouragement. It was going to be an awful day. At school, Mrs. Dickens liked Paul's picture of the sailboat better than my picture of the invisible castle. I like that. So he's very discouraged by this time. There were two cupcakes in Philip Parker's lunch bag, and Albert got a Hershey bar with almonds, and Paul's mother gave him a piece of jelly roll that had little coconut sprinkles on the top. Guess whose mother forgot to put in dessert? Well, we know, Alexander's. And he's decided that he's going to go to Australia because of all of this. That's what it was, because after school, my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in me. Come back next week and I'll fix it, said Dr. Fields. I think I'll go to Australia, says Alexander. I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told everybody. No one even answered. No one even cared. I went to bed, Nick took the pillow he said I could keep and the Mickey Mouse nightlight burned out, and I bit my tongue. The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me. It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. And you know, I guess some of those Alexander problems are ours. We need encouragement, and often it's the things that are little that get us down, not the big things. But down we get. If it isn't kids, it's mom. It's mom struggling through the daily doings of Nazareth living and ending up with the child saying to her, "Why do you say thank goodness instead of goodnight, mommy, when you kiss me goodnight?" Moms need encouragement for all sorts of ordinary daily reasons as well as the biggies. And then the teenagers, I was reading in Time magazine that suicide is the third biggest reason of death in that age group in the United States. Kids are discouraged. They feel they're hopeless; there's no future for them. And of course, the things that are happening in their families, when we think they're doing great, they're not doing great at all. And then the old age people, the senior citizens, the people that are struggling with fears of their future—who will look after them? Have you ever thought of the old people now who have children, some of them all their children who are divorced? Who is going to look after them? Strange new partners with their children, who have no link at all with the mother and the father? There are many, many reasons for fears as the old people around us get older. They need comfort and encouragement. And this can often paralyze us because if you become hopeless, psychiatrists will tell you, that's it. If you lose all hope, then you die. The person who is dying who still has a will to live because there's hope—once hope is taken away, they die very quickly. You've got to have hope, or you get paralyzed. I have had people say these things to me. These are real-life situations as I've traveled around in ministry. Over in Pennsylvania, this woman told me, my daughter is preparing for the mission field. She is in LA, she's doing her nursing. She has contracted AIDS from a patient, and we're losing hope. Somebody else told me over in another part of the country, my daughter has just come out of the closet. She and her lover have bought a house. They now want all the siblings to take their children to meet this new person that is now a part of our family, and she expects to be invited for Christmas dinner. And two of our daughters have said no, our children will not visit. And suddenly our whole family is split apart. What are we going to do? And there is a huge sense of hopelessness in that Christian family that is suddenly coming apart because of this situation. And then I sat with a woman whose seven-year-old daughter told her that daddy likes to take her to bed when she's out of town on business once a week and do things to her. "And is this all right, mommy?" I tell you, there's a whole lot of need out there, and people need encouragement. And as you sit opposite people like that, as I face them daily, I will be listening, I can tell you, to people that need encouragement and hope. And I believe what I believe. The God is the God of all comfort, and that He lives within me, and that He is going to give me ideas and words and strength and help for these people that need encouragement. I often sit there and in the words of Paul say, who is sufficient for these things? It is so bizarre, the things I listen to, so incredible. And I sit there thinking, who is the person that is big enough? There is no person that is big enough, that is sufficient to give an answer to this. But we have a God who the Bible says is the God of all comfort. Wonderful counselor, comforter, the one who in the presence of the Holy Spirit, the comforter, the counselor, can come alongside to help. And part of the love of God contains this idea of comfort, of encouragement, of someone that can breathe freshness, life, to those that pant after it when they are down and discouraged. Hessed. He is the God who, in loyalty to the people that He claims to be His people, has promised comfort and help. He has this determination to supply the same to those people that are in need. "The Lord is my shepherd. His rod and staff comfort me." And that's my first question: is the Lord your shepherd? If not, let's get you into that relationship with Him. Let's lead you to Christ. Let's get you into that, hook you up, connect you to the God of all comfort. And His rod and staff will comfort you. The shepherd's rod was a club to fend off the wild beasts, those that come against us. The crook was there to guide and control the sheep. And when we know the shepherd, He does those things for us. He fends off the wild beasts that would tear us apart. And so the rod and the staff represent God's constant vigilance over His own and bring comfort because of His personal presence and involvement with His sheep. And the shepherd leads the sheep through very deep ravines, through shadowy parts, but He gives His comfort. Now, how does He give this comfort? How does the love of God become real and practical when we need comfort in all these minimal and maximal situations that we find ourselves in? First of all, He gives it directly through the Holy Spirit. Directly. How does this comfort come? Through the Holy Spirit. The comforter, one exactly the same as Jesus. Jesus said, "I'm going to send you the comforter," and He used the word one exactly the same as me. Christ without His body, the third person of the Trinity. "I have to go because if I didn't go, the comforter would not come," He said to His disciples. And so He went, via the cross and the resurrection to heaven. And on Pentecost, He sent forth His Holy Spirit. Now we must be born again by the Spirit. As we are born anew, we've been born once physically, we are born spiritually, and the Spirit of God comes into our life. Who is He? The comforter. So we have within us, every Christian has within them all the comfort that they need. It's learning to appropriate the comfort that you have. You have that comforter within you. It's like having a bank full of all the money you could ever possibly want, but you have to draw on it. You have to sign the checks. You have to go and turn that potential richness into practical reality. So we live in the Spirit, Paul says. We live by the Spirit. We learn to walk in the Spirit, not grieving the Spirit, not offending the Spirit, that all that comfort might be ours in our daily moment-by-moment walk with Him. He is the counselor, the comforter that I need. And for this, I have Jesus. Next time you need comforting, say to yourself, "For this I have Jesus, by His Spirit living in me." He is the God of all comfort. "Lord, I have all the comfort I need. If I am not being comforted, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with the deposit of Christ that you have given me. There's something wrong with me. There is something I am not doing or knowing how to do that will bring that comfort to my heart and to reality." So through directly the Holy Spirit, God can comfort us. Secondly, through the word of God. The Holy Spirit teaches us. He's our teacher who takes this word of God and makes it make sense. His textbook is the Bible. And I want you to turn to Psalm 119, if you can see it in your Bible. Psalm 119. Now Psalm 119 is a devotional psalm in praise of the word of God. It's a devotional exercise. It was written as a thing that could be used in the congregation with a choir and antiphonal response. Some of it would be said, and the audience would say it back, rather like we use our hymn books for readings, etc. It's a devotional in praise of the word of God. How do we know God loves us and will help and console and comfort us? Because the Bible tells us so. And you know, Jesus loves me, this I know. How do we know? Because the Bible tells us so. And the Bible tells us in Psalm 119 that it is through the word of God—this is praising the word of God—the comfort comes. Comfort comes. God in Hessed gives us a book to read. You just need to know where to go to find your comfort. This is the green pastures. Where do you go? Where do you graze to find that comfort? God will lead you. How does He lead you? By His Holy Spirit, who is the comforter, who will lead you to comforting places in the scriptures to help you. He gives us a book to read. And in David's life, in examples of this book, we see him drawing comfort from the word of God. The word of God brought him encouragement when he needed it and comfort. Psalm 119, verse 52: "I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them." There you go. "I remember your ancient laws." Now David needed encouragement, comfort. We're going to think of some of the times today how he needed that comfort and encouragement. We hear his statement: "I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them." The Bible is full of ancient laws, and they are still relevant today. I tell you, if I did not believe that, I would not be doing this. Stuart would not be doing this. We would not be working our heads off for the Lord if we did not believe that. And as we travel the world and as we get missionary letters and as we think through our Christian heritage, it has been the word of God that has gone into a culture and changed it forever. What is the answer? The answer is this brings comfort. Do we believe it? Do we believe it enough to live it out in our lives, to move heaven and earth in order to get the word of God to people? How does God's comfort come to us? Through His word. The written word. Psalm 119, verse 41: "Comfort me with your love. May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise. May your unfailing love be my comfort according to your promise to your servant." The word is a source of comfort. And in Psalm 119, we have these sort of words: law, statutes, precepts, commands, laws, ordinances, degrees, the word. And most of which have to do with His redeeming acts, covenantal words, His promises to us. You know, when we are hopeless, if somebody comes along and promises us something, it gives us hope. And that's what the word of God does. "I remember your ancient laws." They are absolutes. And you know what people are trying to do today? They're trying to change this. They're trying to say, well, it was all right, but it needs revising into something that it doesn't mean. David said, "If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction." It is, he says, for all generations. All generations. Our generation, our kids' generation, our grandchildren. This is not going to change. There are absolutes here that do not change. And the word of God is the word of God. It is trustworthy, and we can tell our children that, and their children, too. David says, "I rise before dawn and I cry for help. I've put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises. Hear my voice in accordance with your love." Your statutes last forever. There is a durability in the promises and the comfort of God that comes to us. "Great peace have they who love your law." If you ladies have not read through Gates of Splendor, buy one. You should have it in your library anyway. Give it to your children. Give it to your neighbors. This is a classic piece of your missionary heritage, the story of the five martyred missionaries. I often draw on examples of this. But I was deeply moved as I read it again, as I looked at pictures of these women, all of whom had little babies when their men were killed: Elizabeth Elliot, Olive Fleming, Barbara Youderian, Marj Saint. And as I read about them hearing the news as they had found the bodies, the thing that struck me was just absolutely incredible is how the word of God brought them comfort. Yes, the Holy Spirit brought them direct comfort, taking the word of God, but it was the word of God. As I came face to face with the news of Roger's death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his home-going. "Help me, Lord, to be both mommy and daddy, to know wisdom and instruction. I wrote a letter to the missions family. I want to be free of self-pity. It's a tool of Satan to rot away a life. The Lord has closed our hearts to grief and hysteria and filled them with His perfect peace through His word. The answers to questions why remained a mystery. This much we knew: whoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. There was no question to the present state of our loved ones; they were with Christ." It was to the word of God we turned over and over again. It was to the word of God we turned. And I was struck with that, and I know that in my little troubles, as I have turned to the word of God, comfort has come to me. So it is through the word we receive comfort, and it is through the word we can pass on that comfort to others.
Guest (Male): Now let's hear from Jill about today's message. Jill, how does God guide a person?
Jill Briscoe: Well, you can't guide a stationary car, so you have to be going somewhere. You have to be growing in your Christian knowledge of God and your Christian life. And if you're in the car and you're trying to find the right way, you have to pass the test and learn how to drive the car, etc., etc. It's a little picture that helps sometimes. Or let me change to the airplane. You're landing on a runway in the dark, and there are lights lit so that you land safely. Now, those lights represent the ability to see where you're landing. Each one can represent something. In the scriptures, each light will light your way to the right decision. For example, it says in the Old Testament, in the company of many are wise decisions made. In the hearing of good counselors, there is safety. That means have you got the advice of wiser believers? Have you gone to someone that's been on the way of faith longer than you? That's one light. Go and tell them you don't know where to come. And then another light is common sense. I mean, just use your spiritual street smarts. That's what common sense—wisdom is spiritual street smarts. Just spiritual street sense. That's what wisdom is. Just use your common sense. A guy, a young man came to me and said, "God has called me to preach." And I said, "I don't think so." He said, "What?" I said, "You have a stammer, you have a speech impediment." Common sense. There weren't too many lights lit for that young man to land on that decision. But common sense was not. And he accepted that, and God led him into an incredible ministry where he didn't have to use words, which he struggled with. So common sense. The advice of other Christians. What you're reading in the word of God. The word of God will give you principles. Talked about this many times on this program. Be in the word of God every day. Put your dilemma up in your diary and just keep it there. And then as you're reading day by day, add affirmation from the word of God to your dilemma on that page. Is that light lit? Are you reading in the word of God principles that are showing you when to land and if to land? And we can not only find comfort in God's word, we can find direction. And when you've got all the lights lit—and you'll never actually get all the lights lit—when you've got enough, take a step of faith and begin to land and just say, "Lord, abort the landing if I've made the wrong decision," which He can do. And land on the decision in the end.