Have You Ever Felt Desperate for Hope
Have you ever felt so panicked about a situation that you can’t see past it? Have you felt so desperate that you can’t imagine things getting better? Have you ever felt desperate for hope?
In my husband’s favorite novel, Moby-Dick, the crew felt hopeless in the face of a menacing squall. While I’ve never read Moby-Dick (but how many people really have!), one of Joel’s favorite lines is that the harpooner was holding onto a lone candle, “hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.”
Isn’t that how we feel when we’re clinging to hope when everything around us is crashing? Hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair? It seems futile to have hope when there’s no evidence things will turn around. It just sets us up for disappointment. No one wants to be desperate for hope. No one wants to be at the end of their rope. No one wants to be surrounded by uncertainty and loss. Yet when we have no reserves and we’re out of ideas, we see we realize God is our only hope. So desperation gives us a unique opportunity to rely on God.
Paul echoes this idea when says, “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 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 1:8-10).
When we are desperate and out of resources, when we are facing peril with no way out, when we feel powerless and hopeless, we see the power of God in a way that we never could otherwise.
Charles Spurgeon says, “When there seems nothing for faith to rest on but the bare Word of God, then faith is glad, for she can commune with her Creator without being entangled by outward means and artifacts. Did not the Lord hang the world on nothing but his word? And cannot we hang our souls there too? It is grand to stand like the arch of heaven, unfiltered and yet unmoved, resting only on the invisible God. Did I say “only”? Is not that resting on everything that is worth trusting, since God is all in all?”
But do we believe that? Or do we need proof first? In the eyes of the world, it’s foolish to have hope when everything around us is falling apart. It’s natural to fall into despair. Both Christians and those who don’t know the Lord can feel hopeless in their suffering, just as faithful people in the Bible often did.
Jeremiah felt desperate when he saw what was happening to Israel and cried out, “Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost! The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss” (Lam 3:18-20 NLT).
Yet even in the pit, Jeremiah dared to hope. He said, “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!’” (Lam 3:21-24 NLT).
I have felt that sense of hopelessness many times in my life. When my infant son died unexpectedly, and I watched his tiny casket being lowered into the ground. When my husband left our family, and I was left with shattered ruins of what I thought would last forever. When my adolescent daughters, who once loved church, angrily walked away from faith. Everything I had hoped for from the Lord was lost. I was desperate.
Like Jeremiah, after crying out to the Lord, something in me shifted. I had the courage to hope. Not because anything external had changed, but because I remembered the character of God. I took my eyes off my circumstances and what was happening around me and put them on the God whose mercies are new every morning. A God who is faithful. A God whose compassion and love is unending.
Only Christians dare to hope in the wreckage, confident they will not be disappointed. We hope when we cannot see the answer, for hope that is seen is no hope at all (Romans 8:24). So hope is a bold act of faith, daring to trust what we cannot see, believing God’s promises when nothing around us makes sense. Nothing is impossible for the One who spoke the world into existence and calls into existence things that do not exist (Romans 4:17).
This is not to say that our fears won’t materialize, because sometimes they will. Sometimes the worst will happen, but for those who know Christ, it will always end well (Romans 8:28). We know that God can change our circumstances with a word, and change may even come tomorrow. But regardless of when change comes, whether in this life or the next, the Lord offers us his presence now, which is his greatest gift. God will never fail us or forsake us. He will hold onto us through the worst. Then we’ll understand that when we’re desperate for hope, we will find it in a person, and his name is Jesus.