Bounce Back This morning I became discouraged and frustrated. My wife sensed it and cheerfully began to sing this chorus:
Cheer up, you saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about, The problem is that when we’re downcast, if we start talking about the situation, we usually end up voicing our complaints and doubts and having a defeatist attitude. That’s what I did when I replied, “Fold up, you saints of God, there’s nothing to be happy about!” That was the way I was feeling, and it was kind of nice for a while. “Poor me!” When we have the poor-me’s, we’re usually just trying to get attention and sympathy. Our pride is wounded, our ego has been a little deflated, and our self-confidence has been a little shaken. In come Mr. and Mrs. Doubt, and we pull up a couple of chairs and invite them to talk it over. Pretty soon we start agreeing with them. “Yes, that’s right! I’m not perfect, and I don’t have much to be happy about. I might as well quit!” It’s because we get our eyes on ourselves instead of God’s goodness. We think so much about our own faults, frailties, and mistakes that we really get down. The devil is the archenemy of happiness, and he can tell us a lot of truth about ourselves that’s horrible, not to speak of the lies he tells us. If we start listening to him, there’s no end to it. It reminds me of when the Bible’s King David said, “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul.”2 How could David have made a song out of that? What kind of doleful dirge, sung in a mournful minor key, would that have been? “Someday I shall surely die! God has failed me. I might as well quit!” It would have sounded terrible! I guess that’s why you never find that in one of David’s psalms. David said it, but he had enough sense not to make a song out of it. Instead, throughout the book of Psalms, he takes a positive approach, praising God in spite of his troubles, because he knew that God would work everything out, because He always had and because He’d promised to. When we’re discouraged, the devil makes us angry when people try to cheer us up, because we can’t enjoy our misery as much while they’re trying to make us happy. We’re ashamed because our defeatism looks so bad alongside their victorious attitude, so we try to find fault with them and others and everything—even God—to excuse ourselves for being so down. So this morning I was irked at my wife when she tried to cheer me up with that song, and I jokingly began to sing the reverse. It was a little funny at first because it was so obviously defiant, but when I got to the third line and saw what the reverse of the song was leading to, it scared me and I couldn’t go on. How could I sing, “Our God has always failed, so why not murmur and doubt? You’ll be sorry you trusted Him tomorrow.” If there’s anything I know, it is that God has never failed. I’ve always been glad I trusted Him tomorrow. I just couldn’t possibly sing the song in reverse, no matter how bad I felt. One of the things that helped snap me out of it was when I realized what a terrible example I was being to my wife, who was trying to encourage me. I realized that I had to get positive for her sake, if nothing else. My grandfather used to say, “If you must go to hell, at least don’t let somebody else stumble over you into hell too!” But that’s not possible, because if you’re going to hell you’re bound to drag others with you. “None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.”3 No man is an island. Each of our lives is bound to affect others. We’re either going to pull people up to our level or drag them down to it, one or the other. We’re going to either be positive or negative, one or the other. It’s impossible to be just a little bit of both. The minute you start listening to the devil, you’re done for! He’ll never quit until he’s dragged you to the very bottom and left you utterly defeated. So keep your eyes on heaven. “Keep your eyes upon the goal, and the victory in your soul.” Start doing something positive. Start saying something cheerful and encouraging—like my wife did for me this morning when she began to sing “Cheer Up, You Saints of God,” reminding me to trust the Lord. “Bounce Back” was adapted from the article “Dumps,” which is available in Greater Victories, a book from Aurora Production.
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