DON'T DESPAIR

Jeremiah 32:17 “Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”

Ever feel like giving up? Ever feel like quitting? Ever feel like your situation is so hopeless that the only thing you can possibly do is leave? Just walk away, head out the door and never come back?

In extreme circumstances, people can feel so much emotional pain that they take their own lives. It’s a result of the loss of hope. It’s the sense that there’s no escape, no way to resolve their problems. It’s the conviction that things are never going to get better. They look and look for a ray of hope and only see darkness.

The common denominator in so many desperate situations is a feeling that the situation is hopeless, that things aren’t going to get better. And when that happens, the temptation is to give up. Sometimes giving up takes the dramatic form of a suicide, a divorce, a worker who takes a gun to work with deadly results. But more often it takes the form of what Thoreau called, "quiet desperation." People going through the motions of a marriage or job; people maintaining the pretense of a relationship with their children or their parents, but who have in reality given up. Detached emotionally. Stopped working; stopped fighting; stopped caring.

All of us have faced this temptation, when it seems pointless to keep trying. You may be facing it now. You may be hiding it well; so that no one would ever suspect the struggle that’s taking place in your heart. But there’s an area of your life where you’re considering just giving up and walking away. The question for us as Christians is, how do we keep holding on when we feel like giving up? How do we find the strength to persevere, to go on? Where does the power come from to keep on keeping on?

We must trust in God. God is sovereign. He is in control. No matter how hopeless, painful, unpleasant, or discouraging your circumstances are, He has a purpose for them. He has a purpose for you in the midst of them. And that purpose does not involve giving up. It does not involve despair. It does not involve abandoning your faith. It does not involve panicking. The struggle you are going through has meaning and purpose, because God is sovereign and He does everything for a reason. He doesn’t make mistakes. He isn’t surprised by what has happened to you.

Let me put this another way. You are where you are right now because that’s where God wants you right now. Your circumstances are part of His plan for your life. This is not an accident. It’s not an unhappy coincidence. It’s not bad luck. It’s not bad karma. It’s not just the result of your decisions or your husband’s decisions or your parents’ decisions or your bosses’ decisions or any other human being’s decisions. It’s the result of a loving and wise God working in your life to accomplish His good purposes, even when those purposes don’t seem loving or good to us. So, don’t despair.

Despair is for people who live in a random, capricious universe where bad things just happen for no reason. Despair is for people who live at the mercy of cosmic forces that are at best indifferent to them and at worst malevolent. Despair is for people who live in a universe in which there is no God, or in which God is only a spectator. Despair is for people who live in a world that doesn’t make sense, where no one and nothing is in control. Despair is not for Christians, who live under the constant care of a loving Father.

Let today be a day in which we all place all of our hope and trust in God. What is the result of placing our trust in God? Hope, joy, and peace.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - Romans 15:13 (NIV)