Discouragement
We read that there was once a time when Moses was discouraged. In spite of the innumerable proofs which he had had of God's power to save, even in the face of what seemed like overwhelming disaster, he had become so utterly heart weary that he longed to die. For the children of Israel were again complaining; they were tired, it appears, of eating manna. Recollections of "the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick" of Egypt filled them with discontent, and they cried: "Our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes. ... Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent."
It was not the first time that they had rebelled. Again and again had they bitterly reproached their faithful leader for taking them from their Egyptian taskmasters only to let them die in the wilderness; and again and again their reproaches had been turned to songs of gladness as the emergency of the moment was met and overcome. But this time the voice of their lamentations seemed to enter into Moses' consciousness and so fill him with discouragement that he could only cry out in his misery, "Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? ... kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, ... and let me not see my wretchedness."
One of the Christian Science lecturers has aptly termed discouragement "the devil's most useful tool," for this little implement can often effect an entrance where everything else would fail. A man who is discouraged is mentally unfitted for clear thinking; while he is standing still, in a state of helpless apathy, a horde of wrong thoughts, unseen by him, rush through the door in his consciousness which the mortal sense of discontent has opened. So it was with Moses, so it may be with some of us. If one who seems to be struggling against a similar sense of mental depression will study this incident as recorded in the eleventh chapter of Numbers, he will perhaps gain some light on his own problem; for the phases of thought through which he is passing are quite likely to be those which assailed Moses, so little has mortal mind changed its methods since the day when it listened to the wailing suggestions of something which was lacking to make its happiness complete.
In the first place, if we analyze the situation a little, we shall see that Moses was laboring under a most exaggerated sense of his own personal responsibility. This is usually the case with the man who is discouraged. He has forgotten that the battle is not his, but God's. He thinks he is doing something, and doing it alone. "Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people?" inquired Moses, "for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat." No wonder he was discouraged. He was looking to Moses, not to God. His next words, consequently, need not surprise us. "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me."
Many a mortal is today toiling along life's road under the same impression. He thinks he is bearing a burden with his own limited human strength, and is crying out because of it; but after a while he will remember that the government belongs to the Christ-idea, not to human sense. The burden is not ours at all, but God's, and we need not carry it a moment longer than it takes us to realize this simple but stupendous fact. Had Moses delivered the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh by his own wisdom? Was it because of him that the Red sea had parted, that water had gushed from the rock, that the bitterness of Marah had been made sweet for the thirsting multitude? Had Moses furnished the manna, or instructed the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night when and where to rest? In short, was it Moses who was leading the Israelites into the promised land, or was it God?
There is, of course, a responsibility which is ours, but it is just to keep so near to God that we will always know what to do. When this is done, we will find beyond a shadow of doubt that "Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way" (Science and Health, p. 454 ). When we live close to God and learn to distinguish clearly between the voice of Truth and the intimations of error, then we shall make no mistakes. God is continually speaking, and His wisdom is sufficient for every emergency. Our one responsibility is to listen and to obey.
Through the door opened by discouragement there sometimes slips in yet another foe to peace and happiness, and it is called self-condemnation. Indeed, so closely is this allied to discouragement that they practically enter hand in hand. The discouraged man is frequently found spending much good, valuable time in comparing himself with some one else to his own disadvantage, in dwelling on past failures, in magnifying past mistakes. He bitterly condemns himself because he has not accomplished all that he has set out to do, and looks with feelings not unmixed with envy at the man across the street who seems to have done more. Wise indeed was Shakespeare when he wrote, "Comparisons are odorous." Why indeed should we compare ourselves with any one, when our real need is to strive each day to attain more nearly to that pattern of perfection which was set us, once for all, by Christ Jesus?
And even Jesus did not condemn any one; he only said to the woman who had sinned, "Go, and sin no more." Self-condemnation never takes anybody anywhere. It simply keeps him standing still, seemingly rooted to the spot where his crop of past mistakes is rearing ugly little heads like insistent weeds. These live only so long as we look at them, and he is therefore wise who ceases his gloomy contemplations and, after having made all amends for his mistakes that he can, resolves, in the strength of Christ, Truth, never to repeat the offense, and moves on. There is always today in which to do better; let us thank God for that!
Thanking God, we soon find, is one of the most effectual ways in which to overcome discouragement; for there is no state of mind so utterly destructive to it as that of gratitude. When a man who longs to do better is thankful to God for benefits already received, discouragement will not even take the trouble to ascend the steps of his mental home and look in at the window. And how much we all have for which to be grateful! In the United States a special day is set aside, once a year, on which the people meet in their churches and give thanks to the Giver of all goodness. Although to the Christian Scientist every day in the year is a day of thanksgiving, yet he loves to join with his fellows in audible expressions of rejoicing, to tell of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night which is still guiding him out of the darkness of material beliefs into the land of light and freedom. Moses would not have prayed to die if he had remembered the forty days and nights upon Mount Sinai, when the glory of God's presence so encompassed him that upon returning again to the people he had to cover his face with a veil. He was not thinking of Moses then. We are told that he wist not that his face shone.
Like Moses, there are those who today have had their forty days and nights upon the mount. They, too, have seen something of the divine glory as it came to them in demonstration, and for a long time afterward the wonder of it lingered in their faces, bringing to them a radiance that was not of earth, and it did not then seem to them that they could ever forget. Let every doubting heart, therefore, take courage. Let each of us begin to think about our blessings, the greatest of which is this larger thought of God, and His tender, all-embracing love. Let us be glad that we have something to give, even this simple, saving truth of divine Science, which has so enriched our own lives; let us be glad that there are always opportunities to speak of it, and so many hearts waiting and longing to receive it. Let us be glad that we can join in the great harvest song of thanksgiving, even though we may not yet have seen the entire solution of all our own little problems.
And as we "think on these things," these things which are true, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, as the apostle describes them, we will lift our eyes as joyously and as spontaneously as a flower lifts its head to the sun; for on the wings of gratitude there has come even to us that vision on the mount. God has indeed been good to us, and can we not trust Him evermore? As our faces glow again with the sweetness of the memory of the divine goodness, every burden of discouragement slips silently from our shoulders, and we are glad and free.
