The Cause of Much Christian Discouragment

Recently, I have been writing on God's Promises, and it occurred to me that I far too often hear believers, and pastors, and other well meaning ministries on the radio, use God's promises in a very unscriptural way.
They guarantee the listener that if they will just hold on to God's promise, then He will change the circumstance that is causing their discouragement.  When they talk about Christ bringing His people through the storms of life, too many think that the storm will become sunshine, and all trials will be removed.  Victory in Jesus means for many that life will be smoothe sailing.
But alas, these poor folks find that sometimes the illness remains, the financial hardship doesn't dissipate quite so soon, and our spouse, our  children and others that we are praying for show no interest in the things of God, yet.  We then start to silently question, not those who taught us wrongly, or our own poor understanding of what we've been taught from God's word, but God!  We start to question if God is really faithful, or really able, or if He really even cares about our situation.

Our discouragement may tell us just how wrong we are in our knowledge of God.
God never promised us that everything we touch will turn to gold, or that we would live perfectly healthy lives, or that our children would never be prodigals.

God has promised that He will be with us, He will work all things for good for us, finish what he began in us, make us more like Jesus, and when He's ready, and we are ready, take us home to be with Him forever.  Let us never forget this one thing.  Christ went to the cross to save sinners, to bring His people through this sin filled world into His eternal kingdom and joyful presence.

Too many of us pray for temporal comforts and pleasures, and we don't pray that God would make us to be faithful examples of Christ in the midst of our suffering,  while we live in this world as an alien, a stranger.

Hey, pray for healing, pray for relief in your trials.  Then trust God.  He knows exactly what He is up to.