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Let's Never Despair!

As we watch the news on television, we often hear news of despair. For example, there was a recent news story regarding a man who shot and killed his 19-year-old grandson. After a standoff with police, the man turned the gun on himself. According to a letter written in the hours before his death, the man was distraught over conflicts between himself and his grandson that he felt powerless to resolve. Apparently, he could envision no other option than to kill both the young man and himself. A woman in Santa Clara, California, who killed her husband and two daughters before taking her own life; A veterinarian in who murdered his three children, his stepdaughter and himself; Three young adults from Colorado who died in an apparent murder-suicide pact on a Santa Cruz beach.

It’s easy for the news media to focus on the sensational aspects of such events — but far more important, is our consideration of the root cause for all the above events — the insidious sin of despair. We might not even think about despair as being sinful until it manifests itself in actions like those that led to the above related tragedies. Despair is not unlike some other sins, (i.e., lust, envy and greed), in that we tend not to think about it until it suddenly erupts. Despair originates from an inward problem that we try to ignore until it sometimes becomes horribly too late. In this article, let us focus on two aspects of despair:

1) Despair Is Sin — Even when we can’t see it clearly from the outside. It was the sin of the Israelites who railed against Moses: “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, “Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?” For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:11-12). It was the sin of the ten spies who upon returning from Canaan reported, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants” (Numbers 13:32). It was the sin that led Esau to forfeit his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew, believing he would die if he did not eat (Genesis 25:32). It was the sin into which Job’s wife sought to lead him with her words, “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9).

2) Despair Is Faithlessness — Despair is an accusation against God that His arm is too short to save and His ear too deaf to hear (Isaiah 59:1). The person wallowing in despair by his attitude calls God a liar when He promises, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), and His word a liar when it says, “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). The individual in despair does not say, “I have no refuge but God,” but rather, “I have no refuge in God.” Sadly, such a person is, “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12), not because he has to be, but because he has refused to be otherwise.

One day when Jesus was traveling by boat with His disciples (Mark 4:35-41), a storm arose that threatened to capsize the craft. When the disciples awoke Him from His sleep, they suggested that He lacked compassion for them: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). With a single command, Jesus stilled the tempest, but He had harsh questions for His followers: “Why is it that you are so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). They had given in to despair, so much that they not only forgot Who was with them, but accused Him of not caring. How many troubled people in the world around us — how many even of the children of God — find themselves out on that same short pier?

Jesus Christ is our hope (1 Timothy 1:1; Colossians 1:27). However, hope does not come easily — it follows tribulation, which produces perseverance, which produces character, which in the end inspires hope (Romans 5:3-4). That kind of hope never disappoints (Romans 5:5) — even in the darkest of days. Hope means trusting in God even when we cannot plainly see deliverance on the horizon — the proverbial cavalry riding over the hill. It means relying on an invisible God to provide rescue that may yet be unseen (Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 11:1; Hebrews 11:6).

Brethren, in facing the trials of life, let us never succumb to despair, but stand alongside Jeremiah, God’s weeping but faithful prophet, who amid the ruins of his homeland wrote: “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in Him” (Lamentations 3:22-24).