Tonight’s discussing is a difficult one because it is easier to talk about growth in success than it is to

speak of growth in challenges.

How many feel you grow more when life is good than when it isn’t?

Why?

The fact of the matter is soil cannot produce a crop unless you break it up to plant a seed.

You cannot have bread unless you break up some grain.

All of us have witnessed some victories and all of us have had epic failures.

Alex and denae stories

We have had mountain top experiences many times only to be followed by deep valleys.

Biblical example of a true mountain top experience followed by a deep valley is Elijah
22
Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the LORD’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and
fifty prophets. 23 Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it
into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the
wood but not set fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the
LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

 25 Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are
so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” 26 So they took the bull
given them and prepared it.

   Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted.
But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

 30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the
altar of the LORD, which had been torn down. 31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the
tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, “Your name
shall be Israel.” 32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench
around it large enough to hold two seahs[a] of seed. 33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into
pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it
on the offering and on the wood.”

 34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

   “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The water ran down around
the altar and even filled the trench.
 36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “LORD, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your
servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, LORD, answer me, so
these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back
again.”

 38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil,
and also licked up the water in the trench.

Now look at what we find when we turn the page

 1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with
the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever
so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

 3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant
there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat
down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life;
I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

We have all had mountain top experiences many times only to be followed by deep valleys.

But is that how God planned it.

I like the quotation by Henry Drummond, the Scottish theologian when he said, “God does not make the
mountains in order to be inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the
mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings
below. But we can’t live there. We don’t stay there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams
descend quickly to fulfill the valleys below.” did you hear that The streams start in the mountaintops,
but they come down to fulfill the valleys below.

Is it easy to become discouraged?

Why

Many of the world’s and the church’s greatest leaders have been given to discouragement..
Winston Churchill confessed that he was often, “hounded by the big dog of discouragement.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul fought continually
bouts of depression and discouragement as a result of gout that finally killed him at age 58.
A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. After
carefully assessing the situation, the farmer decided that neither the mule nor the well was
worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had
happened…and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of
his misery.

But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling loads of dirt the landed in the well on
mules back…The ole mule SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP This he did, blow after blow.

‘Shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up!’No matter how
many shovels of dirt they poured on the mule, or distressing the situation seemed, the old mule
just kept right on SHAKING IT OFF AND STEPPING UP!

It wasn’t long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the dirt
and out of the well!

So how do we shake it off and step up learning how to grow in discouragement

First remember God has a plan jer 29:11

I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to
give you the future you hope for

Do we plan our spiritual lives like we plan the rest of our lives.

Do we think about how many lives we touched today for his kingdom or do we still get caught
up in our kingdom

Second Remember trials and challenges are actually training.

1 pet 1:6-7
6
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds
of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold,
which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is
revealed.

Wilma didn't get much of a head start in life. A bout with polio left her left leg crooked and her foot
twisted inward so she had to wear leg braces. After seven years of painful therapy, she could walk
without her braces. At age 12 Wilma tried out for a girls basketball team, but didn't make it.
Determined, she practiced with a girlfriend and two boys every day. The next year she made the team.
When a college track coach saw her during a game, he talked her into letting him train her as a runner.
By age 14 she had outrun the fastest sprinters in the U.S. In 1956 Wilma made the U.S. Olympic team,
but showed poorly. That bitter disappointment motivated her to work harder for the 1960 Olympics in
Rome--and there Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals, the most a woman had ever won. 

Have you ever heard someone say I guess it wasn’t Gods will for you to win or something else.

When we grow in our faith we start to realize that maybe it was Gods will for us to fail because the only
way to make us great is to make us not good.

Lastly fix your eyes on Jesus

Hebrews 12:2 (New International Version)

2
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

That means you have to keep Christ in front of you and you will look at the rest of the world with a
different perspective.

Story about the gardener

The response surprised him They said “wow that must be beautiful try and enjoy them”

So the secret in growing in your faith during times that should be discouraging is to remember
He has a plan for us, The trials are training not trauma, and as we look through the eyes of
Christ even a mess can be a masterpiece.