5 Ways to Find Encouragement When Life Is Bleak

No matter how bleak, how dark, how unsavory life becomes, there’s good on the other side. Until we get there, we should find ways to stay encouraged. Here are five ways you and I can do just that!

1. Pray Always

“Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

If you want to find encouragement, prayer is essential. God doesn’t call us to bear the burdens of life alone. In His love for us, He wants to help. He wants us to be encouraged. While we could look at prayer as a way of informing God about our struggles, that would be inaccurate. Instead, prayer helps mold us into more Christ-like people. We talk to God about the pain because we want Him to reprove us. By inviting Him in, we open ourselves up to positive change. Prayer helps us see the ways in which we’ve been discouraged, and how we might overcome.

We pray so that God would grant us wisdom and character development. We pray so that we can feel His presence in our hour of need. And we pray so that God can send us companions to assist as well.

Now, prayer does not excuse our own choices. There are definitely ways we bring about our own discouragement. Rather, as we pray for God’s help, we should ensure our behavior works in tandem with those prayers. Sometimes we’re more plugged into the world than God.

2. Read Scripture

“When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?” (Psalm 8:3-4)

Have you ever sat down and read Scripture for pleasure or even to study and felt your mood change? There’s something about God’s Word that brings light to our darkest beliefs. For that reason, and because He commands us, we should spend time meditating on Scripture day and night. The more we think about God’s Word, the less reason we have for discouragement. Instead of focusing on the bad things of today, our perspective will be centered on the eternal. Heaven. There’s so much more to life than what we see before our eyes. We need the Bible to understand and remember that.

We also need the Bible to know how much we’re loved. Despair often sets in when we see the world burning around us and feel powerless to do anything. We feel left on our own accord. However, God’s word makes this clear - we are never alone.

3. Make Sacrifices 

“Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—  making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17)

Knowing Scripture is knowing truth, and so is knowing other facts about life, facts such as the correlation between unhappiness and social media usage. Where we plug ourselves into influences our mood. That includes your favorite podcasts and radio stations. No matter how much you enjoy something, we should be open to letting go of the things that hold us back.

Sometimes we don’t realize, but what we focus on grows. If you dwell on political corruption, that’s what you see every time you log into Twitter.

The algorithms of social media sites even feed us more of the things we dwell on, for better or for worse. Often for worse.

Weigh the pros and cons. If you even up with more cons, consider making a sacrifice or, at the very least, limiting usage.

4. Keep Good Company

“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24)

Just like the news can be a constant source of discouragement, so can the people we keep in our lives. You are who you hang around, as the adage goes. Certainly there’s some truth that the company we keep offers a reflection of ourselves. What’s also true is that our company has an impact on our thought lives. Stick around someone who is negative, and their words will begin to rub off on you - either as irritation or something you start to believe.

As fewer young people gravitate toward the church today, finding like-minded people can be a challenge. The church is growing smaller, not bigger. However, relying on God and continuing to try is sure to bear some fruit eventually. There are still many people in church, old and young. And where there are people, there can be community. A community that encourages.

5. Serve Others

“Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:25)

One of the best ways to find encouragement for yourself is to stop thinking so much about yourself. Since dwelling on problems magnifies them, taking the focus off of ourselves helps improve our perspective. This doesn’t mean we avoid thinking about problems. Rather, we don’t allow them to govern our minds. We use energy instead to serve others. When we encourage people, we ourselves find reasons to be encouraged. Moreover, the people will oftentimes want to help us in return.

Conclusion

There are plenty of reasons to be discouraged today, but there are plenty of reasons to be encouraged too. The question is, which will you focus on today? Changing our perspectives isn’t easy, but then again, neither is life. What we can know, however, is that God is with us, and He will supply our needs according to His will. Put your trust in Him today.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/JudeBeck 

Aaron D'Anthony Brown is a freelance writer, hip-hop dance teacher, and visual artist, living in Virginia. He currently contributes work to iBelieve, Crosswalk, and supports various clients through the platform Upwork. He's an outside-the-box thinker with a penchant for challenging the status quo. Check out his short story “Serenity.”