Reversing Discouragement

It occurred to me as I was biking home from the excellent LDS Employment Workshop that the negative feelings I was having yesterday morning could only have been coming from Satan. That meant that Satan didn't want me to go to the Employment Workshop, and after attending the workshop, I can see why. It was a positive, encouraging, empowering experience for me. I can see why God would want me to go to a workshop like that. And, at the same time, I knew why Satan would want me to be too discouraged to go.

What God wants and what Satan wants are two very different things. In fact (if I understand the term correctly), they may be polar opposites. Whenever God wants something to happen, Satan doesn't want it to happen, and vice versa.

Satan is very fond of discouraging people from doing the right thing. When Joseph Smith went into the grove to ask which church was true, Satan tried to stop him. Satan didn't want the First Vision to happen, but God did.

So now I'm thinking - If Satan is trying to prevent something, that must mean that God wants it to happen. If you remember my blog post about agency with the red and green branches, where the green branch represents God's chosen path for us, and the red branches represent every other path, the ONLY path that Satan would want to stop us from going down is the one God has laid out for us. Thus, by trying to stop us from doing something, Satan is also confirming for us (with "us" here meaning all those who struggle to correctly interpret God's will) which path God wants us to go down. By trying to stop us from doing something, Satan is revealing that he knows that's what God would want us to do.

So, when you're trying to do something good, and you're feeling really depressed and discouraged about it, that may be a good thing. It's likely that you're doing something that your Father in Heaven would want you to do, which means, naturally, that Satan doesn't want you to succeed in it. Satan will always try to stop you when you're trying to do the right thing, and that thought alone could be discouraging, but it shows us, by Satan's opposition, that God wants us to continually strive to do the right thing. And I strongly believe that if God wants us to do something, either He's willing help us to do it, or He knows that we're already capable to do it on our own. And when we do it, whether we had Heaven's help in doing it or not, God'll bless us for doing it. And I'm pretty sure that the blessings He gives us, in this life and in the eternities, are fully worth the struggle Satan puts us through to get them.

So when you're facing extra struggles and you feel you can't go on, try to think of what God would want you to do and you may discover that you're already trying to do it. Then you'll know that the opposition you feel is from the devil, and you can pray for God to strengthen you to overcome his opposition. God will be with you to bless you, strengthen you, and comfort you as needed, and with His help, you will succeed.