Lighthouse Keeper

⁴ Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building.^[5 They bribed officials to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.

⁶ At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem. (Ezra 4:4-6). 

One of the main ways you will run aground in your Christian walk is through the slow, dripping and frustrating process of discouragement. 

What begins with enthusiasm and motivation can get worn down into a drudgery as the external voices of criticism become your own thought life and wear you down. 

I remember when I was working on a very large enterprise social media account for a tech company and there were rumours that we were about to lose the account to a smaller startup. 

If you’ve ever been around large ad agencies you’ll know this means one thing…redundancies. One of the other women in my little work pod set out to discourage and discredit me so that I would be the first thrown off the life raft and she would keep her job and maybe be assigned to a large credit card company account. Let’s call her *Sarah. 

Added to this, she was American with conditional work rights for Australia so if she lost her work sponsorship, she would have to leave Sydney and her Aussie boyfriend. There was a lot of motivation for her.

The jibes went all day and usually when there was an audience to listen to her heckling:

I would laugh and chuckle along but the character questioning and constant making me feel “less than” was starting to discourage me. 

It’s the same tactic that was used in the Book of Ezra that was written between 450 and 400 BC. The people of Judah and Jerusalem were rebuilding the temple after the exile. Other groups accused them of trying to evade taxes, set up their own dominion, and make war against the ruling king. Just like Sarah at the ad agency. 

Frustrated the builders and the workers so they lose their motivation and give up. It’s the same tactic that the Enemy will use to get you out of position, stop you praying, stop you going to church, stop you enjoying the job and children and life that you prayed for. 

So what’s the solution? Oil. You need oil for your lamp and this can only be purchased from Jesus while He is near. 

25 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³ The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴ The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. (Matthew 25: 1-5)

There’s a lot going on here but oil can represent the Holy Spirit and your personal devotional life with the Lord. The lamp is your outward ministry or confession (so this blog is my lamp for example) where you shine the light for others. 

Without oil for your lamp (private devotional and prayer time and worship time with the Lord) your lamp will go out.  You need oil and lots of it for the journey.

So if you find that you are getting discouraged in your Christian walk, go and get some oil off Jesus. Bring your empty vessel . That’s you. Note I said empty so surrendered you- prepared to listen and obey,  and buy from Him at no price. (Isaiah 55:1, Rev 3:18). 

There will always be critics and haters and discouragers like Sarah in your world but don’t give them any real estate in your head. Keep building.

For the record, I did get made redundant from the ad agency, I’ve written about that here, and so did Sarah. She got sent home to the US with no work visa. And yes, we do have computers in New Zealand, and Spotify 🙂

*Not real names