You might be familiar with the story of the man standing on a bridge prepared to jump to his death. A passerby came along, stopped his car and attempted to talk some sense into the man. He asked the man why he was going to jump. In his total discouragement, the man replied that there were too many things wrong in this world to continue living. The passerby tried to reason with the man, saying that things weren't as bleak as they looked.
Discouragement is contagious.
Because discouragement can be such an insidious problem, even among Christians, we should understand what the Bible has to say about discouragement and how to deal with it. Let's consider some of the causes for discouragement and also some of the cures as outlined in a passage of Scripture from the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah, you may recall, was the leader of the Jews who had returned to Israel from Babylon to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. God had given him a vision to rebuild what had been torn down. They were excited initially.