Hi everyone, I hope you’re all fine by God’s grace. Today’s post is about hopelessness.
I don’t know if any of you has ever felt hopeless but I have. Each of us has his/her sensitivity, and what affects one of us in one way may not affect the other in the same way. Let it be an unmet expectation, a broken heart, an unanswered prayer, bad news, the loss of a loved one, or even sickness, we all have our moments where we are down. It’s worth noting that, being sad is one thing, while feeling clueless, hopeless/desperate is another.
Anyone who has ever felt hopeless knows this feeling, this moment during which you feel like “It’s over”, “There’s no other way”, “There’s no solution”, “It will never change” ,”It will always feel the same”. This feeling really comes about because of our thoughts, because we start believing that the situation can’t get better in the future, and won’t ever get better.
The most surprising thing with hopelessness is that you may not feel it for sometime, it may seem to disappear while you are out with friends having fun, while you’re working on something you enjoy, or even while you get involved in Church. Afterwards, someday, one single thing happens and makes you hopeless again. This feeling may never seem to leave, but only to hibernate from time to time, waiting for favorable conditions for it to spring in your life once again.
Of course, the most difficult thing is when your friends, family, and loved ones are surprised by the fact that you call yourself a “Christian“, you sing all those beautiful songs about God’s glory and yet you feel hopeless. Even in the church, some of us are still surprised when we see fellow Christians feeling hopeless and depressed, some of us even criticize them, call them weak and question their faith. A good number of us even are ashamed to feel hopeless because we believe “a good Christian should never feel this way“.
We tend to have this misconception that if someone is a Christian, his/her life ought to rock all the time, everything ought to be alright, “perfect” and in every single aspect. This isn’t really true, because serving God doesn’t mean you’ll never face problems, you remember we talked about this when discussing Job’s story here. Serving God doesn’t mean either that you’ll never feel sad or that you’ll never feel hopeless. Serving God doesn’t mean that you’ll never have issues with your mental health. Christians too can feel sad, Christians too can feel hopeless. There are wonderful servants of God we can read of in The Bible who had times where they felt really bad and really hurt, sad, hopeless etc, yet they served God.
1 Kings 19: 3-5 NASB
And he(Elijah) was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’sjourney into the wilderness, and came and sat downunder a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O LORD,take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.”…
Jonah 4:3,8 NIV
“Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah‘s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
Numbers 11: 14-16 NASB
“I(Moses) alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. “So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.” The LORD therefore said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.…
This is just to conclude that we all have our difficult times, Christian or non-Christian. It can happen, but it doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of our story. These people we’ve seen above who felt hopeless, it wasn’t the end of their story with God. If you tackle hopelessness the right way, and let God be your hope and support, it won’t be a downfall to you but just a checkpoint on your journey, drawing you closer to God.
It’s time for you to realize that you are a human being and God created you with feelings, you shouldn’t feel guilty for feeling sad or depressed. God knew you would feel that way, He isn’t ashamed that you feel so. It’s normal to feel hopeless, but it’s unfair to ourselves to remain in the state of hopelessness. Reason why next post God-willing we’ll explore the remedy to hopelessness. I can’t promise you that you’ll never feel hopeless again, but I can guarantee that by God’s grace every time hopelessness knocks at your door you’ll be prepared to fight it. Please make sure to read next week’s post. As a prelude, please click here and learn about how much God loves you.
Prayer
Eternal Lord God King of Glory, I pray that You forgive me for the times I failed to understand others’ feelings of hopelessness and to show compassion out of love for You and for my neighbor. Thank You for making me realize today that my feelings are normal and thank You for preparing me little by little to fight negative emotions such that they do not control me nor prevent me from living life to the fullest in Christ. In Jesus Christ’s Name, I pray. Amen
Thanks for reading.
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GOD bless you all
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