9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.
Discouragement can be crippling. It can deafen you to great news. It is as though the wind gets knocked out of your spirit’s sail. Your soul becomes deflated. The inner spiritual reserves get depleted. Most people get to this place at some point in their lives. Some people seem to live in this place for long periods of time. We often call this depression. We know that depression is linked to the lack of certain chemicals in the brain. I call them the “happy juices.” Without them we feel depressed. But depression is much more than simply the lack happy juices. There are many roads that lead to depression. Sometimes, like the Israelites in Egypt, their discouragement was connected to their circumstances. So often, depression is connected to circumstances. When the circumstances change, the depression lifts. When we get too focused on our negative circumstances, our eyes get drawn away for the Lord and His promises. The Israelites have for the most part forgotten God’s promises. Now the Lord wants to remind them of those promises, but they have difficulty hearing it because of their mental and spiritual state. Depression has a tendency to close in our world of options. We can’t even hear hope when it is offered. Discouragement is deflating. Even the strongest believer can get discouraged. Depression is not a sign of spiritual weakness or failure. It is a sign of being human. It is a natural outcome of certain events in life. When someone we love dies, it is natural to feel some depression, some discouragement. Our hearts know intrinsically that death is not right, that death does not fit. Our hearts ache and yearn. The wind gets knocked out of our future for a time.
The Arnold Journey 