Hope Clings To God
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." -- Psalm 42:5
Hope is most alive in the midst of helplessness. That was the word that came from David Jeremiah as I traveled toward Plant Lake, Florida, yesterday.
It's a subject that touches my heart for numerous reasons. We all talk about hope. We hope in what we can not see. We believe in what we can not touch. We reach toward what others deny. We cling to hope when the world around us shatters. Hope. That very real desire and belief that something we want will happen. That our lives can recover from the disaster that surrounds us.
When life is going fine we have no need for hope. We have what we want. We're basically happy. It is when something or someone destroys our world that we cling to hope in the midst of our pain.
I was thrilled to hear Jeremiah defend those who suffer from depression. Some preachers insist that depression comes from sin. If you want to get rid of depression, get rid of the sin in your life. I once heard a christian counselor on a radio talk show say depression is nothing more than selfishness. I was -- and am -- appalled. I just prayed that no one truly in the midst of depression heard him. It scares me that this man is a christian counselor. He could do such damage because of his misguided views, turning people away from the hope God offers instead of offering them a life-saving rock.
But getting back to Jeremiah. He talked about Moses and Elijah and David, among others. All these suffered from severe depression at some point. When we read their stories, we hear the anguish of these people that God used for His purpose.
As Christians, we can't ignore the very real pain and suffering of those around us. Doing so only pushes people who need God away from Him. We can offer them hope by telling them the stories of Joseph and Daniel, Jeremiah said. We can let people suffering from depression know that God is with us in the valleys of life. He carries us when we don't have the strength to go forward. He can turn the most tragic events into good.
It is when darkness closes in around us, when despair it etched in every fiber of our being, that a kernel of hope can spring up. With God's loving hand that hope can grow stronger and stronger each day, until the light completely destroys the darkness. Hope. Such power in a four-letter word.
No comments:
Post a Comment