Psalm 119:25

"I lie in the dust; completely discouraged; revive me by your word."

This verse opens the 4th stanza of Psalm 119. I don't recall ever lying in the dust completely discouraged. But I do remember lying in the snow in the middle of a blizzard completely discouraged. During my first trip home with Ryan to Oregon, we went cross country skiing at Crater Lake. Remember that I'm an Alabama girl. About 10 inches of snow was the most I had ever seen in my life. We were cross country skiing and it was snowing. I didn't think much about it. Later, I discovered it was a blizzard-- complete white out. Southern girls don't know any better; it's all just snow to us.

I did fine on the way out to the rim of the lake, but on the way back my energy was completely depleted. At one point, I fell in the snow and couldn't muster the strength to get back up on my feet. Ryan's form of encouragement at that point was, "If you don't get up, you'll get buried alive in the snow." That gave me the boost I needed. Later, I discovered with had covered about 7 miles. That may not seem like a lot, but for a first time attempt at cross country skiing, I was pretty proud of myself.

We all need different types of encouragement at different times, and God's word contains all the wisdom, encouragement, challenge, and stretching that we need. The Psalmist asks God to revive him at least 9 times in Psalm 119 alone. Discouragement is a natural part of life, and we will all find ourselves lying in the dust from time to time. Discouragement will come; it's how we respond to it that counts. When we are discouraged, we need to dig into his Word to find the revival that we need. It may not come in the form that we would like to hear it, but it's there.