Discouraged?

This taken from John Piper's journal:

O Lord, have mercy on me. I am so discouraged. I am so blank. I feel like there are opponents on every hand, even when I know that most of my people are for me. I am so blind to the future of the church. O Father, am I blind because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not even live out the year, and you are sparing the church the added burden of a future I had made and could not complete?

This was written in 1986.  He was so discouraged, he thought about stepping down from his ministry.  You can get a real sense of how he is seeing his world just fall apart.  Have you ever felt like that before?  Have you ever just thought to yourself...

"I am in way over my head"?  "Why did I take on so much?"  "I will never be able to catch up on my work"?

I know I've been there before.  My first year here at Calvary, I felt that.  It seemed like all the events and lessons to work on were just too much to bear.  I had come from a church that did an event about once every month.  Here, there are about 3-4 events a month!  How am I going to keep up with that???

The following sentences of John Piper's journal, read like this:

 I do not doubt for a moment your goodness of power or omnipotence in my life or in the life of the church. I confess that the problem is mine. The weakness is in me. The blindness is in my eyes. The sin—O reveal to me my hidden faults!—is mine and mine the blame. Have mercy, Father. Have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head.

How often in our times of woe, do we turn to God and say, "You are perfect and good and the fault is all mine for feeling this way"?  Usually our mindset is, "God make everything easier".  Here are some great biblical truths that we can use, when we feel that the pressures of life seem too much to bear.

I Peter 5:7 - "casting all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you"...you are not alone.  You have a loving and merciful Savior that desires for you to lean on him!

Psalm 38:18 - "I am full of anxiety because of my sin"...maybe you need to take care of sin.

Romans 8:28-29 - "All things work together for good"...so that you can become more like Christ.  Even the things that seem overwhelming.  They are there to help you become more like Christ.

What are some other verses that you have found to be of help when you were in times of uncertainty?