Hopelessness is barren and covered in destruction. It appears as though nothing can grow. Hopelessness strips us of growth, it destroys life, and it leaves barrenness in its wake. It appears as if all is lost.
Call me an incurable optimist, but even when all seems lost and hope has vanished, I look for the positive. Sometimes I have to dig in the muck and mire. At times, I search and search, but eventually I find treasure. And you can too.
Our hopelessness doesn’t have to define us. God can use the circumstances in our life to refine us if we allow him to draw us near, open our eyes, and hear what he has to say.
Step one:
Turn to God instead of away from God.
When trials come, do you have a tendency to blame God, run away from God, or turn to God? Sometimes I go through the process of all three. The mentality: “I’m a child of God, no troubles should befall me,” gets stuck in our head and when trials come, we stomp our feet and cry, “Why?” Or we run away from God and wait out the trial behind busyness or religious duties. The best response is to turn to God. Ask him your questions, seek him for answers, and choose to trust him.
“Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 (ESV)
Step two:
Our perspective for the purpose of trials needs refining. Trust God. He doesn’t waste a hurt, ever. At times that is hard to believe because the devastation we feel is so overwhelming. How can we trust God if he allows so much hurt? is a question that can roll through our minds. When that question plagues me, I remember the cross. I remember what Jesus experienced and know that redemption came through pain.
When we stand strong in the face of our pain, God redeems it and allows our faith to be strengthened by it. We exchange our hopelessness for hope when we set our hope on him, and not on ourselves or whatever vices we turn to when we feel devastated by life.
Step three:
Rely on God. Self-sufficiency and a stiff-upper lip are positive traits until they’re not. And they’re not when we try and go through this life in our own strength. If we can exchange our self-sufficiency for God’s sufficiency and that stiff-upper lip for eyes fixed on God, we begin to rely on God. He guides us, molds us, and directs us. We simply must respond by a letting go of our own abilities and strength and exchange it for competency in his ability to rescue and renew us.
Set your hope on God that he will deliver you again. He does deliver. Take a moment to remember and remind yourself of how God rescues you.
What do you do when your world goes dark? When you lose your way, your voice, your song? Do you fall in a heap or scramble to busy? Or is it a little bit of both?
To tell you the truth, I don’t always handle it well when a shadow passes over and the ground beneath my feet gives way. It takes me a bit to adjust because what was my normal is no longer my normal. I have to adjust to a new normal which at times seems to be an insurmountable mountain to climb.
But it’s in the storms that I most see God’s mightiness. There’s something about the light seeming to be brighter in the darkness. The tiniest candle gives off the greatest pool of light in the deepest gloom. It draws me like a moth to a flame, only instead of getting burned, I’m comforted.
It’s in the storms that my faith stretches and grows. As the circumstances around me humble me, I bow lower and lower to the ground and find myself reaching deeper and deeper into God’s stores of goodness and grace for me. And then I find something unusual, that as I go deeper, I really am reaching higher. Higher into God’s mountain. Over the jagged boulders and the slippery shale I climb, desperate and hungry for more and more of God.
In “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” John Bunyan paired Timorous with Mistrust because one is not absent from the other. Timidity is a lack of courage and mistrust is skepticism. The depth of my courage is bound to my belief in what God says about himself and about me. And my trust in who God is relates to the level of my courage.
Will I believe that he is my strength and my song? Will I believe that he is able to save?
“Surely God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord is my strength and song; he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2
This verse becomes an anthem to the distressed. We read that God is our salvation. He saves. So we don’t have to be afraid. For those who believe in God’s plan of salvation for all mankind, their place in eternity is secured. Our circumstances cannot take that from us.
Then we trust and do not give way to fear. The secret to trusting and not giving way to fear is recognizing that you are afraid and anxious, and then speaking God’s truth to your heart. Our faith develops perseverance and endurance in times of trouble.
The Lord is your strength when you are strong and when you are weak. He enables you to trust him, to believe him, if you only ask. You cry, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”He carries you when you cannot take another step. He holds you close when your sorrow renders you powerless. He whispers encouragement to your heart.
And then he is your song. He enables you to praise him. In Psalm 69, the psalmist states that he is afflicted and in pain, but God’s salvation sets him on high. And because of this the psalmist praises the name of God with a song. When we sing to God in the midst of our pain, it gives our hearts a place to bleed and to heal. The Lord becomes the melody we hear. The melody that he sings over us is his song of deliverance and rejoicing.
We trust him and listen for his song and rest in his strength because he saves us. He makes a way through our circumstances either by changing it or changing us. The next time you can’t find your song, listen for God’s melody and then sing.
Application
1.Consider the love God has for you. While you were a sinner, Christ died for you. If you haven’t made Christ your savior, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved.
2. Admit your weaknesses and rely on God’s strength to carry you through.
3. Listen to these songs by Mosaic and Bethel. Let the truth of the lyrics be the song that God sings over you.
Are you ever weary? Do you wonder why some things in life are just so hard? Do you ever dream of a remote hide-a-way? I shouldn’t be shocked when life slaps me alongside the head. But I kinda am. I sometimes don’t understand why troubles should come if God loves me. Doesn’t God’s love guarantee a trouble free life?
It is said that in this world we will have trouble, but to take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. This verse can be encouraging and discouraging all at once. We try and avoid trouble, pain and heartache. But it’s part of life. And a life lived to its fullest needs to experience all the emotions this life offers.
However, sometimes it’s difficult to decipher if the trouble is a result of our own choices and actions or if we’ve been allured to the desert like Hosea. Either way, our troubles offer us opportunities to grow in faith and love and to put action to the words we say we believe in, such as: “I trust You.” or “He never leaves me nor forsakes me.”
Trust the Giver
Sometimes, though, we begin looking to our own abilities to help us through our troubles. We all have strengths or defaults we return to again and again. For some, it involves emotional stuffing where we don’t recognize the feelings of abandonment or anger or angst. For others, it involves working harder and longer in order to prove to ourselves and others that we have it all together. Still others, give up, so their walk with Christ often looks like two steps forward, three steps back.
It’s common to run to other things when life feels out of control and God appears to have abandoned us. How does he seem to do this? By not showing up when we demand, or answering that prayer the way we want or by not making other people behave the way we think they should. Yes, I try to boss God around, and be strong in my own strength. But the more I’m strong in my own strength the weaker I feel.
I need the reminder that it’s not my abilities or giftings that save me or help me. It’s God. He is the one who makes my way clear, one step at a time. He is the one who holds me up when I cannot stand up. I trust his eyes more than my own.
It is God who saves and so we boast in him. We say to ourselves: He is strong and if I rest in him, he will carry me to victory. God is the giver of your abilities. Everything you have that enables you to navigate through this life comes straight from him.
Do you want victory in your life? Begin by trusting in the giver of the gifts rather than your abilities.
“For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me. But you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever.” Psalm 44:6-8
Application
What ability do you have a tendency to turn to when life gets hard?
List 3 attributes of God that you can boast about. It might be joy, strength, peace, power, comforter, redeemer, righteousness, portion, or provider. Choose three that resonate with you.
How are they are evident in your life? Say a prayer of praise.
