Choose Joy, When the Nails of Discouragement Drain Your Life.

I knelt there with my head against my right-left fender. I was so frustrated. I had turned the air compressor on but the tire seemed to be losing air and not gaining. I felt like I was doing all the right things, but all of my efforts in getting it back to a safe tire pressure were resulting in zero gain. I couldn’t understand? The nozzle fit right over the tire stem and it was obvious how easy this task should be? But the tire just didn’t look like it was filling up with air? And no matter how much I desired to accomplish what needed to be done, I was still somehow failing.

I have to admit, sometimes, those are the moments where I feel discouraged. When you are trying so hard and It seems your life reflects zero results. At this moment I sat down by my tire in the dirt, my head down in my hands, the air compressor humming in the background. One minute, I was so confident in myself, but then the next moment I felt failure.

Great discouragement arrived! He pushed every accomplishment rudely aside. He’s dominant and cocky, and pulled all the stops to have his way. He came right in and took his place. He abruptly pushed confidence aside with no respect on how hard she had worked to earn her place.

Discouragement deceives when he reminds us that the things we desire to fill up our lives with are not worth the effort and will give no purposeful outcome.

His favorite thing to do is to bring back every failure you have had to build his case. I call this the “dark list”. And he did just that. That day, I was overwhelmed with the list he presented, my joy, she tried and whispered reminders of how I was stronger than this. But sometimes this “dark list” of past failures is what discouragement utilizes to keep his hold over us and strangle our joy.

That day discouragement loomed over me like this dark and angry cloud.

So, I took my car to the tire shop. I didn’t want to ask for help. I thought I was strong enough for all of this. When I got out of my car I noticed something shiny. I bent down to look. It was a nail in my tire? I laughed.

I wasn’t a failure! I had something totally out of my control that had interfered with my efforts! It was so easy to see, literally right there, even shiny?

Discouragement gasped, his hold on me was diminishing and he couldn’t stay. But oh! He was so persistent. He presented the “dark list” again but “Joy” gave him no foothold.

I know sometimes, I don’t always have this noticeable insight into why I’ve had failures. I don’t always have this shiny nail that presents itself to show me while I am failing. And it’s hard. Discouragement comes in because sometimes we do fail and we don’t know why. We are trying so hard at something and it’s like putting air into a tire with a nail. No matter how much effort we put into something we are actually losing. It’s that simple.

And I’m struck with this truth. Sometimes we fail, not because our efforts aren’t enough, but because of situations out of our control and the toxic people we let in our life. Because some people are like nails, they come to hurt us and put this hole into our hearts and yet we keep trying to fill our life up despite the nail, despite of them. We work so hard and wonder why our life is still emptying out.

I had so much effort going into putting air into my tire that I missed the obvious shiny nail that was robbing me of being successful at my task. And that’s a huge self discovery for me. I think we all can take inventory of our life. What circumstances or people are those “shiny nails” creating discouragement that robs us of our joy? Today, I choose to not let discouragement, whether it’s people or circumstances to be that nail, that lets my joy leak out of my life.