Skip to main content

Can I Still Have Hope?

Have you ever lost hope?  If so, what you experienced is commonly known as despair!

Despair, according to the dictionary, is the complete loss of or absence of hope.  And if that isn’t bad enough, a sense of helplessness, kind of like feeling that you are caught up in a current with no way of escape, often comes with despair.   

The temptation to despair is actually fairly common.  We live in a fallen world deeply impacted by sin and there is no shortage of things that can crush our hope.

In one particular Psalm, we find the writer referencing some things he was experiencing that could have led to despair.  He was facing evildoers, adversaries, foes, false witnesses, an army encamping against him and war rising against him. 

Other translations bring out different aspects of what the word “despair” might have meant to that writer of the Psalm, such as “I would have lost heart” and “I would have been without hope”.

Lost heart, without hope, not a pretty picture, in fact, a rather despairing one!  Yet in the midst of all that, the Psalmist was able to write:  “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  (Ps. 27:13)

What the Psalmist provided for us, in that verse, is an antidote to despair.  The antidote is believing that we will see the goodness of God!  That belief is fundamentally shaped by viewing the future through the lens of who God is and what He promises that He will do.

In the book of Lamentations, we find a similar antidote:  “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.  The Lord’s loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  “’The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I have hope in Him.’”  (Lam 3:21-24)

The antidote is making a conscious and deliberate effort to call to mind the Lord’s loving-kindnesses, compassion and faithfulness.  Because He has demonstrated them in the past, we can believe that they can be for us today.  That belief is fundamentally shaped by viewing the past through the lens of who God is and what He has done.

As we look to the past through the lens of who God is and what He has done and as we look to the future through the lens of who God is and what He has promised that He will do, we can move from despair to hope.

And hope is an anchor for the soul (Heb 6:19).  That anchor holds firm and secure and it helps to keep us from being caught up in the current of despair!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Worth, Worthy and the Opposite

After reading in the Psalms recently, I was struck by the concept of worth, well, actually worthlessness.   For example, in Psalm 101 we find this:   “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless (v.3).”   And, in Psalm 119:   “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways (v. 37).” In order to consider what is worthless, we should consider what has worth.  To that, the Bible speaks clearly:  “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev 5:12)   If worth is measured by power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory and blessing, which are all pretty good measurements, then the One who has infinite worth is Jesus, the Lamb that was slain.  And if we want to consider what it worthless, it is probably the opposite of all those things.  But perhaps it would still be good to define some words: Worth :   the value of something measured by its qualities or by the esteem
Post a Comment
Read more

New Year Trash or Treasure?

You probably know the old saying:  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I am not going to try to prove or disprove it, just look at it from a different angle. Cheryl and I were recently walking on a beach in Florida .  A man was walking along with a bag and was picking up trash and putting it in the bag.  Was he picking up things of value? We also saw a different man walking along the same beach with a metal detector.  He would swing it back and forth and would occasionally stop and dig in the sand.  Was he looking for things of value? Both were intent.  Both were focused.  Both were diligent. I’m guessing that the one picking up trash was not looking for things of value.  I’m also guessing that, by picking up trash, he was valuing the beauty of the beach and didn’t want the trash to mar it.  The one with the metal detector, I’m guessing that he was not looking for metallic items of trash but was looking for metallic items of value that were lost or inadve
1 comment
Read more

Don't Get Tripped Up

I do enjoy traveling and I keep an eye out for good prices. I also enjoy looking at trends in travel. For a while, the travel industry focused their advertising on taking those trips that might be on your bucket list.   That faded a bit and I started seeing ads about taking the trip of a lifetime. I guess both those campaigns have been waning since I’ve been seeing information about taking an “epic” trip.   Recently I noticed the phrase “unforgettable trip” in advertising.   More recently, I’ve been seeing promotions about taking “sustainable” trips and even “reconnecting to our roots” trips. As I’ve been pondering these advertising campaigns, I thought I’d consider what their ideas encompass and then look at them from a spiritual perspective: 1.   “ Bucket list trips ” are based on a list of the experiences a person might hope to have before they “kick the bucket” (i.e. die).   While I can certainly come up with a bucket list of trips, I’m thinking a bucket list of spiritual e
Post a Comment
Read more