Living Outloud: When Discouragement Hits

Go deeper with our new book, The Rubble and the Wall: Sharing God's Heart to Restore What's Broken, available on Amazon or outloudbible.com

We talk through Nehemiah’s rebuilding story and why resistance often shows up the moment we step into the work God puts on our hearts. We name the discouragement tactics that try to turn into doubt and lay out how learning God’s voice helps us keep going. 
• Nehemiah as a picture of restoring what’s broken 
• why opposition is expected when we push back darkness 
• Sanballat and Tobiah’s mockery as a playbook for discouragement 
• attacks on value and strength as spiritual warfare themes 
• questioning clarity and minimizing the mission 
• overemphasizing rubble and damage to create hopelessness 
• disparaging the quality of our work and redefining excellence 
• the difference between discouragement and doubt 
• learning to recognize God’s voice through Scripture and prayer 

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Nehemiah Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Living Out Loud today with Mike and Kelsey.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

That's Kelsey.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Living Out Loud. We're just talking about some of the passages that were read earlier this week and seeing how we can live them out loud. Let the Bible actually make a difference in our lives and guide how we live and how we uh face obstacles and how we uh celebrate successes. And so we're gonna be talking a little bit more about Nehemiah.

The Rubble And The Wall

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I love Nehemiah. Nehemiah is one of my favorite books. And I get made fun of for saying that because I say that about like pretty much every other Old Testament book. But it's true. I I love it. And it's such a great story and great example of when we go about trying to, I don't know, just do the work that God's given us to do. It's something that we see that breaks our heart, and we go out and we want to go be a part of the solution. And it it covers the whole range of experience there, from just starting it before it even happens, or even, you know, quitting your job, even Nehemiah quits his job and uh facing opposition and casting vision and completing it. Like it's the whole thing. And uh, in fact, it's such a great example for those times where we feel like we want to go out and you know, do what God put on our heart to do that uh we turned it into a book. We've talked about that this week as as the book has been released uh just a couple days ago at this point, as the time of this recording. And uh it's called The Rubble and the Wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

And it's the sharing God's heart to restore what's broken.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Because it's all about God's heart. It's all about, well, what is God's heart? How does God see the world? And if God's heart breaks, then can we allow our heart to break for it? Or maybe we feel like, oh man, my heart breaks for this. It's like, well, that yeah, that's because it breaks God's heart too, and he's kind of inviting you into seeing things the way he sees them and being a part of the solution. God could snap his fingers and fix it, but that's not how he's choosing to run this world. He's involving us in helping rebuild creation after Satan has done so much destruction. God shows his glory through the restoration of it, and we get to be involved in that process. Of course, when you work against Satan, uh he does not uh go down without a fight. And so today I want to talk about some of the fights that we can expect. I'm not saying if, I'm saying when you go about doing God's work to restore what's broken in this world, say you get a target on your back.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

And and Satan does not go down without a fight.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

And he will, he he's allowed to land a few punches when you fight.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

We've often said, uh, based on our experience writing uh several books, whenever someone else talks about, like, oh, I want to write this book, we're always like, uh, if you're not willing to like really live out the message of that book, then don't write it. Because the minute you start writing a book for God's glory, you're starting to tear down walls and take back ground from the enemy, and he is gonna come after you. So if you're not willing to fight against some spiritual battles in some warfare in the spiritual realms, then don't even start.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Don't write the book. Don't write the book. Unless you know God wants you to write the book, in which case, well, I mean do write the book.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Say that tongue in cheek, because obviously you should write the book and don't.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

You don't want to practice what you preach. Don't preach it.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

But don't like, don't back down because Satan's gonna be mean and he's gonna come attack you, but just be aware that there will be attacks. You're putting us you're putting a target on your back the minute you declare that you're tearing down some of the enemy's work.

Nehemiah’s Critics Start Mocking

SPEAKER_01 3:45

But thankfully, Nehemiah lives out an example of how to navigate this. And so uh we're gonna just be borrowing some of the concepts from the book, The Rebel on the Wall. Uh, we're gonna take a look at chapter six. And uh it hey, I would highly recommend grab your copy, go to Amazon, The Rebel on the Wall. Um, it's book three of the series that we released all at once here, but it you don't have to necessarily read one and two to get to this point. Um, it's just find the book that matches where you are in your season with with navigating the difficult times and the difficult places in your life. And if this is one of them, then hey, we're we're we're hitting it. It's gonna be good. So uh we're taking a look at chapter six, but we're also taking a look at Nehemiah chapter four. Uh and in Nehemiah chapter four, verses one through three, we see Nehemiah's Nemesis come up. And uh his name's Sandbalot. And this is one of the local leaders who had been in the promised land for a bit while the exiles were out, and and now Nehemiah's coming back to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and Sandbalat feels threatened by that. So Sandbalat says here in in chapter four of Nehemiah, verses one through three, Sandbalat was very angry when he learned that we were rebuilding the wall. He flew into a rage and mocked the Jews, saying in front of his friends and the Sumerian army officers Now listen to what he says. He he he gives a number of deriding remarks. What does this bunch of poor, feeble Jews think they're doing? Do they think they can build the wall in a single day just by offering a few sacrifices? Do they think they can actually make something of stones from the rubble heap and charred ones of that? Now Tobiah, the Ammonite, who was standing beside him, remarked, that stone wall would collapse if even a fox walked along the top of it. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Jerks.

Seeing The Source Behind The Noise

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Okay. So yes, this is you may not have a Sand Ballot and his crony Tobiah yelling things at you and being discouraging at you as you go about your work. Maybe there are some voices of people, maybe they're they're family members who don't line up with your mission. Maybe they're strangers on the internet, and you're just trying to post some good Christ-focused work on the internet, and the up come from in the comment sections these trolls that are just saying all these awful things about you and about God and about your work and about your teeth or whatever. Well, come on.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Your teeth.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Just hypothetically speaking. Uh so uh you may not have someone f literally physically saying these things, and maybe you do, but either way, the source is the same. Satan is coming after you, and if if he sees you making some sort of progress, he's first going to try to discourage you from doing this.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

And and Satan is mean. That seems like a understatement of the millennium, but it's also just really true.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

And so we tend to forget, we tend to over-spiritualize it, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, and I and I think that sometimes too we Yes, San Ballot was being mean. Tobiah was joining in and being mean. But I want to encourage you that when you're seeking Christ and trying to live your life according to what God says is good, and you're trying to call bad what God says is bad and what God says is sin, there will be voices that come against you, and they are from individual people. But I think we need to recognize who's really behind that. Not to not to eliminate responsibility from those who are causing harm and saying horrible things. They're responsible for the words that they say. But who's giving them those words? Who's giving them those thoughts? Who are they aligned with as they attack you while you live for Christ? They're aligned with Satan. They're getting their messaging from Satan, they're not coming up with it in their own imaginations, they're getting it directly from the father of lies, they're getting it from hell.

A Ministry Story Of Opposition

SPEAKER_01 7:50

And so hopefully we know what the opposite of that looks like. If we are are spirit-led, Christ-following people, followers of God, then you know how it is sometimes when you say something and that was really encouraging to someone, and you're like, I I didn't, those weren't my words. I I just I don't know. I guess that's I guess that's God. So praise God that you know you feel encouraged by that because I didn't come up with that idea. That was just kind of a God thing. Like, and those are great moments, but I hopefully you can relate to something like that. Well, the same thing is true for someone who has who does not know the voice of God and will just kind of repeat whatever comes to mind, and it comes from Satan. Like just like we we can hear from God and and and share that knowingly or unknowingly with other people, people will knowingly or unknowingly speak on Satan's behalf if they're used to listening to his voice. It's all what voice are you to tuned into more? And so someone who's more tuned in with Satan's voice, because they're not tuned into God's voice at all, they're gonna say things on behalf of Satan and it's gonna be mean.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. Yeah. In one of my most discouraging seasons of life, I was doing really, really difficult ministry within our church and had some church people who were really coming against me. And there was a specific conversation where uh another leader at church who really despised me was giving me all her reasons why she thought I should be removed from ministry. And while she was saying these things, I was sitting there just feeling like, wow, Satan's really trying hard to get me out of ministry.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

It didn't even seem like her, did it?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

It didn't seem like her. It it really felt like she was a puppet in the moment for Satan to be speaking things that were just really mean, but the Holy Spirit was working it as well in my heart and mind, saying, like, these the this is the enemy's attempt to flatten me and pull me out of ministry and pull me out of the fight. And um, and and so I so I just relate to to Zerubbabel, or no, Nehemiah, sorry. Zerubbabel was last week. Um, I relate to Nehemiah in this, in that there's people, he's just doing what God put him in place to do, and there's people who very much want him to stop doing it. That's how I felt. I was doing what God wanted me to do. There were people who very much wanted me to not do it. And so Satan worked through those people to send some pretty intense, um, derisive, just angry and mean attacks against uh Nehemiah and the people of God to try to get them to stop doing what God called them to do. And so I just want you to hear this conversation through that lens. I want you to hear that if you're if you are chasing after God, if you are in a position doing what God has called you to do, and you know that you have prayerfully entered that, you're not in it arrogantly, you're not trying to build a name for yourself. You're literally just trying to live your life to glorify Christ and you're trying to live your life to follow Jesus, and there are people who are coming against you, trying to get you to quit or walk away or stop what you're doing, stop saying what you're saying, stop being the way you are, stop going where you're going. Like if there are people who are trying to get you to stop, those people are trying to get you stop because Satan is trying to get you to stop. Satan is trying to get you to stop what you're doing for the Lord. Satan is trying to get you to stop living for the Lord. And so, so we have to recognize that that we're not fighting against these people who are coming against us. We're fighting against Satan himself and his legion of demons who are trying to dismantle the work of God in your life.

Naming Satan’s Discouragement Tactics

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So let's take a look at what sort of things Satan was saying through Sandballot at this time. I think we can start to identify what they could mean to you and your situation and what then we we can start doing about it. Uh just pulling out some of these phrases that he said, these poor, feeble Jews. Poor, he demeaned the Jews' value, and feeble, he belittled their strength.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And he says So if you're facing some sort of attack or or opposition that is demeaning your value, belittling your strength, that is a Satan attack. Oh, yeah. That's what we're getting into. We're gonna go through more of these phrases, but that's that's how that's how I'm inviting us to engage with this is to recognize that if your value is being attacked, that's a Satan attack.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

100%.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Because God is the one who who defines your value, God is the one who gives you your value, and so Satan is going to attack your value and attack your strength that God's given you to accomplish what he's given you to do.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

He questioned their clarity. He says, What do they think they're doing? He's questioning, like, you don't even know. You don't even know what you're doing. You don't you don't have any clarity on this project, you don't have any vision. He misrepresented their goal. He said, What? They think they're gonna build the wall in a single day? Well, no, obviously not. But he's he's just misrepresenting and minimizing their goal.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Oh, and sometimes we don't even need a sand ballot outside of us saying these things. We say these things to ourselves. We can Satan can just do the work from the inside out in some of these things, saying, like, oh, I don't even know what I'm doing. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I oh my gosh, I my I my goals are uh just unattainable, just unreachable. And I don't know. We're thinking you're behind them.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Like I I I it should have been done by now. I I shouldn't I shouldn't still be here in this phase, thinking back even of our small beginnings conversation last week.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Why am I still here? Like, why am I, I don't know, why am I 40 and I haven't accomplished something yet? Like I should have I should have done something by now. These are Satan attacks. These are Satan attacks that we think of ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Sandballot challenged their faith. He says, what, they're gonna rebuild the wall in a single day just by offering a few sacrifices. The Jews were offering sacrifices to the Lord because they knew that this was only gonna come through the Lord's favor and the Lord's timing and the Lord's way. So they were offering sacrifices as an act of faith that, like, this is how we fight our battles, this is how we accomplish our projects. But from the outside, from Sandbat and from Satan's point of view, it's like that their faith isn't doing anything. Their faith isn't helping anything.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

He Why do you keep praying? Why do you keep asking God to help you? He's not doing like it's not working. Like, why you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

It's gross. But it goes on. He said, What, they're just gonna build something of stones. Like he just oversimplified their project. No, this was the wall of Jerusalem. This was the wall surrounding God's holy city, Zion, where his presence dwells. And he's like, Well, you're just gonna build some some rock something oversimplifying their project. Don't lose sight of what this project actually represents because Satan is really good at just minimizing it and just oversimplifying it. But not only does he oversimplify the project, he over-emphasized the problem. He said, out of this rubbish heap and charred ones at that. Now, is he wrong? Not really. I mean, it was uh it was and a lot and burned gates. Like he wasn't wrong, but he's over-emphasizing the problem by just focusing on the lack and focusing on the damage. And we see ourselves as damaged goods, and and it's really hard to build and do anything when we find either ourselves as damaged goods or the what we're looking at as beyond repair.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah, that that's such a that's such a Satan tactic to overemphasize the negative, to over-emphasize the challenges, to over-emphasize the problems. When God has when God has said in in the story of Nehemiah, God said, You're gonna go rebuild the wall. And it didn't matter that there was a bunch of rubble and charred gates in the way. That's not too much for God. That's not like God is like, oh, oh man, you know what? I told her to build a wall. I forgot there was rubble there.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

It's worse than I thought.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Oh, this isn't gonna go well, is it? That's not what God's saying. It's what we say, it's what Satan will say to us to discourage us and stop us from our work, but it's not what God's saying. And so when we're overly focused on the problem, when we're overly focused on the challenges, when we're over overly focused on the hardship that it's gonna take in order to accomplish the goal, that is that is a Satan tactic to get you to stop. It's not a God, it's not God's voice in the project.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And one one or your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

No.

When Discouragement Turns Into Doubt

SPEAKER_01 15:46

And one more observation that comes from Tobiaya, when he says, Oh, it would collapse even if a fox ran across the top of it. He disparages their quality, the quality of their work. And this is one that we tend to take on for ourselves. Is it's like, well, I don't know, I'm not a graphic designer, it's not really good. Or like, I don't know, I don't, I'm not a I'm I don't make videos, I just put this together, it's not very good. Or I don't know, I'm not a I'm not a public speaker. I I don't uh I just not really good at at talking to people in front of a room. But when God puts us in these positions to do these sorts of things, it's really easy to believe that this lie that that the quality of our work is less than it should be. Now I'm not saying don't do things with excellence, but excell you gotta redefine what excellence is. And and excellence is going about the Lord's work the Lord's way with integrity, giving your best, letting and with the faith that that God can take your loaves and your fish and multiply it to feed as many people as he wants. And and in this in in this conversations about these these different tactics and different disparaging lines, uh we we've kind of hit on uh on something here. There's a difference between discouragement and doubt. In when when these things come at you, that's discouragement. If you hear from I don't know, trolls in the comment section, or some discouraging word from your family member who d isn't on board with what you're doing, or some friend who doesn't catch the vision of it, like that's discouraging. And that certainly hurts. But but it it's like discouraged to literally take the courage from. Like you had courage to do this project, and now after this person said something, you're like, oh, that's that that I don't feel so courageous anymore. Like that's discouraging, and that's that's a problem. But there's a difference between that and doubt. Because discouragement is like litter that's like that's like thrown at you, is like someone, you know, throws trash at you. It's like, oh, that that is that's messy and gross, and I don't feel good about that. But if you let it stay there and kind of sit in your mind, and you kind of repeat it to your i in your mind and you kind of think about that, and it's like, uh, yeah, you know what? That is kind of true. I yeah, I'm not really good at this, or like I really don't know what I'm doing, or yeah, there's like I don't I don't think this is gonna work, then then you let it clutter. If you don't pick up the litter, then it becomes clutter and you can't work in clutter, and it's really hard to clean up the clutter that's been left there in your own mind because you've allowed these discouragements to take root and become doubts. And that's the goal. Satan, if he can just be mean, then all right, that's that's great. He he'll be mean, but if he can be mean and then have you start believing it, then it's way harder to to dig yourself out of that hole.

Learning To Recognize God’s Voice

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah. And so this conversation ultimately is is a battle between two voices, right? We've talked a lot about like what Satan's voice sounds like. Well, how do you recognize that it's Satan's voice because you've spent time listening to God's voice and you know that it sounds, it doesn't sound like God. Like the way to battle the discouragements coming at you through the work of Satan himself is to know that it's Satan. And the way you know it's Satan is because you know it's not God. And the way you know it's not God is because you know what God sounds like, because you spend time in his word, you spend time in prayer, you spend time getting to know him. And when you know him and you know what he sounds like, and you recognize God's voice, then those other discouragements coming at you, you can recognize as that's not that's not what God would say. That's not something God would say about me, that's not something God would say to me, that's not something God would have for me. And so I can reject it as something from Satan, and I don't have to hold on to it. It doesn't get to seep in and become a doubt because I know it's not from God in the first place.

Battle Plan Tools And Closing

SPEAKER_01 19:35

God's voice, it is the Bible. First of all, all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training. That's what it says in 2 Timothy 3.16. That's that's God's voice. That's the primary way we get to know what God's voice sounds like. God's voice also accompanies your study of the Bible. Like not just what you read, but then what he teaches you and tells you when you read. The Holy Spirit teaches you everything you need to know. It says in 1 John 2.27. It also God's voice never contradicts the Bible. Numbers 23 19 says God doesn't lie or change his mind about what he's promised. What does he promise? It's the Bible. So he's not gonna contradict anything. If there's something that doesn't line up with what you've been reading, then that's not God's voice. It also doesn't sound like your voice. God's way God's ways, his thoughts, his plans, they're all higher than yours, as we read in Isaiah 55.8. So if it sounds like, oh, that sounds like a good thing, I just I don't, I just that sounds like, oof, I I'm a little bit nervous, I'm a little bit scared, or I I don't I don't see myself the same way, but that seems like a good thing. Well, that's probably God's voice, higher and than yours, and seeing your situation better than you do. We gotta tune into God's voice in these ways, or else we are not gonna stand a chance when Satan starts being mean and trying to throw these discouragements at us. And and we start to believe those and start to doubt ourselves and doubt God and doubt our work if we let those stick around. Well, that was uh that's a lot to think about. Uh if you want to go back, I I this is just chapter six from the book The Rubble in the Wall. Uh Rubble in the Wall is actually unique in the series, in the Heartwork series of three books. Uh it's unique in that there's a bunch of appendices at the back of the book that help take what you read in the chapters and go deeper with uh it could be in a discussion guide or it could be your own kind of work through a kind of a worksheet at home. Um and so the appendix that accompanies this chapter helps build a bit of a battle plan against the discouragements and doubts and using the scripture, especially in Philippians, to uh to help filter out the thoughts and avoid the discouragements and the doubts that Satan throws your way. So um I'd pick up the rubble on the wall. It's available on Amazon, check it out, and uh and go through this story and many others as we walk through the work that Nehemiah did. And it's a I know it's gonna be a big encouragement to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

So thanks for joining us here on Living Out Loud, our Friday episodes of Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. Um, I'm Kelsey, and I'm here with Mike, and he's gonna jump in next week into the book of. Of Malachi after finishing up Nehemiah. Yeah, that's and we will see you here next week.