If you’re the type of person who is given to despair (i.e., a human being), you should take care to write down the victories you win. Even the small ones.
Why? Because despair comes. In those moments, the human memory becomes incredibly, remarkably small. You will not be able to remember the victory you won the day before. If your battle is trying to focus and write, for instance, you may write 800 great words today, but when you sit down tomorrow to wage battle, you may be entirely incapable of remembering that those 800 words ever happened. You need to record somewhere, somewhere easy to reference, that there was a battle, and that you won it.
God knows human beings are like that. He commands (and commends) all kinds of memorials, both with His people in the Old Testament and with His people in the new testament. There’s the story of Joshua and the people of Israel crossing the Jordan:
“Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.” (Joshua 4:2-7, ESV)
There are many, many others. There’s the, “This do in remembrance of me” of communion, an opportunity to declare a victory routinely as the church.
I need to learn this lesson. You probably do, too. Record the victories. Set up the stones. Come back to them when you despair, and remember.