100 Sermon Illustrations on Despair

The total helplessness of God’s people often proves to be the backdrop for Yahweh’s deliverance.

It looked that bleak for the Federal frigate MINNESOTA one Saturday night in 1862 near Hampton Roads. That day the Confederate ironclad, the VIRGINIA (formerly the MERRIMAC), had revolutionized naval warfare. The VIRGINIA had already sunk the CONGRESS and CUMBERLAND, and when three additional wooden ships, including the MINNESOTA, had hurried to assist they had run aground.

The VIRGINIA withdrew for the night since the ebb tide prevented her from coming within effective range of the stranded MINNESOTA. After dawn the next day the VIRGINIA steamed toward her helpless prey for a certain kill. Suddenly, something looking like a raft with a boiler on it darted out from behind the MINNESOTA heading for the VIRGINIA. It was the MONITOR, the Federal ironclad commanded by John L. Worden. The MONITOR engaged the VIRGINIA in a four-hour duel that proved a draw. But the MINNESOTA was saved. The MONITOR had arrived during the night, put in alongside the MINNESOTA, and had kept her steam up. When it was most hopeless, help came.

That is frequently Yahweh’s way with his Israel. That is why the remnant refuses to lose heart. Not that his people enjoy their helpless condition; it is simply that they have seen God create deliverance out of nothing too many times to give themselves over to total despair.

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From Shelby Foote, “The Civil War, A Narrative,” volume 1, “Fort Sumter to Perryville (New York: Vintage, 1986), pp. 255-63.

Poor girls in China are committing mass suicide due to despair over boring life in countryside. Peasant girls often jump to their deaths wearing their finest clothes, hoping it will somehow speed their reincarnation as city girls.

Research by the Anchorage Daily News found that Alaska's frontier is experiencing an epidemic of suicide and violence due to substance abuse. It had been covered up, with obituaries saying they had died of natural causes. In one 16-month period, the small village of Alakanuk (pop: 550) suffered eight suicides, dozens of attempted suicides, two murders and four drownings. In 44 separate stories, the News described the widespread despair and self- destruction: native men 20 to 24 committed suicide at 10 times the national average; alcoholism was rampant; so was the sexual assault of children.

#722

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It is important to remember how God has worked in your life.

Martin Luther King, Jr., at beginning of his career was arrested for no reason except his civil rights demonstrations were causing friction. He was released from jail but then received a bomb threat. He tried to think of a way out of his situation. He wrote the following:

I got to the point that I couldn't take it anymore. I was weak.... And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself.

I bowed down over a cup of coffee. I will never forget it. I prayed a prayer, and I prayed out loud that night. I said, "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage."

And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world."

I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone.

(Three days later a bomb shattered his front porch. King took it calmly: "My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it.")

Get close to God while you can.

[Yancey grew up in a racist high school which erupted in applause at the news of President Kennedy's assassination, and went to racist churches that taught that the curse of Ham applied to Negroes.]

Major F. J. Harold Kushner, an army medical officer held by the Vietcong for over five years, cites an example of death because of an attitudinal failure. In a fascinating article in {New York Magazine} this tragic yet true account is included:

“Among the prisoners in Kushner’s POW camp was a tough young marine, twenty-four years old, who had already survived two years of prisoncamp life in relatively good health. Part of the reason for this was that the camp commander had promised to release the man if he cooperated. Since this had been done before with others, the marine turned into a model POW and the leader of the camp’s thought-reform group. As time passed he gradually realized that his captors had lied to him. When the full realization of this took hold he became a zombie. He refused to do all work, rejected all offers of food and encouragement, and simply lay on his cot sucking his thumb. In a matter of weeks he was dead.” (1)

Caught in the vice grip of lost hope, life became too much for the once-tough marine to handle. When that last string snapped, there was nothing left.

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1. Douglas Colligan, “That Helpless Feeling: The Dangers of Stress,” (New York) July 14, 1975, page 28.

Charles R. Swindoll, “Man to Man” (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996) pages 64-65.

Personal disaster that can be caused by gossip:

In a small town in North Dakota there was a young family. They were happy, even though the mother had not been entirely well since the birth of their second baby. But everyone in town knew there was warmth there because of the way they treated each other.

Then one day the town gossip started a rumor that the husband was being unfaithful. It wasn’t true, but the story spread. Eventually it reached the ears of the young wife.

It must have been more than she could bear. That night when the husband came home, he knew something was wrong. No one greeted him, and the whole house was silent. Down in the basement he found the three of them, hanging from a beam. In despair, the sick young mother had taken the lives of her two children and then her own.

Assaulted by the enemy’s accusations, it’s all too easy to slide from discouragement into despair, but there is One who can break the deadly grip of disillusionment.

Final sermon in 50 Day Adventure series. Hope and resurrection.

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SURPRISING OUTCOMES

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I. The importance of hope.

A. What a glorious thing it is to bring hope to people.

B. Many believe hope is unrealistic.

C. Despair seems so much more realistic than hope.

II. The events of the first Easter.

A. The disciples had reason for despair.

B. They find an empty tomb.

C. God doesn't always follow our expectations.

III. God's surprises throughout history.

A. Abraham, Moses, and Joseph.

B. If God did these things, what can he do for you??

IV. The greatest surprise of all.

A. The greatest surprise in history is the resurrection of Jesus.

B. Nothing can overcome God's power.

V. One thing should not surprise us. John 3:7

In his book “Night,” Wiesel tells of one night when several prisoners decided to put God on trial. They wanted to try God for the horrors of the Holocaust. These were men of faith, but it seemed to them their faith had failed them. They asked young Wiesel to witness the proceedings.

The “prosecuting attorney” brought charges. God’s people had been torn from their homes, separated from their families, beaten, abused, and burned alive in the incinerators. The defense attorney made his case. But in the end, they found God guilty of failing and abandoning his people, maybe even guilty of not existing.

The trial was over. The mood in the room was somber, dark, depressing. The men prepared for bed. A few minutes later, however, when the time came for the Jewish evening prayer, these same men who had just found God guilty of abandoning them got on their knees and prayed their evening prayer.

This scene brought Habakkuk once again to mind: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength” (3:17-19).

Elie Wiesel’s story had profound meaning and a deep impact on me and my congregation during that terrible week.

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From the article, "Beyond Infosermons: How To Preach With Impact, Not Just Information."

[see #3965 for originating article on preaching with stories.]

Sermon in Ecclesiastes series. Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

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MEANINGLESS, MEANINGLESS

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I. The biggest questions.

A. Why are you here? Where are you going?

B. Ecclesiastes is a journal concerning one man's journey.

C. A confusing book.

II. Life lived "under the sun."

A. "Under the sun" (/under heaven) means an earthly perspective.

B. Nothing satisfies if God is left out of the picture.

III. That empty feeling.

A. "Vanity of vanities" - the frustration of modern life.

B. Ultimate truth and stability - in nature.

C. Ultimate truth and stability - in human history.

IV. We need a vertical perspective.

A. Meaning in life comes from revelation, not research.

B. Not just belief, but a vital union with a living Lord.

C. For those who feel like giving up, God gives hope.

#4023

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Even the smallest children in Vacation Bible School that year seemed to catch the irony deeply anchored in the story of Jonah. God calls one of his prophets to deliver a message to save the great city of Nineveh. The prophet, who is in the profession of pointing lives to the God who saves, runs in the opposite direction because he knows God would really save them! The special effects and the unforgettable plot — a great storm, a big fish, and a God everyone knows you can't run away from — make the narrative an easy theme for children's sermons and vacation bible school. Yet, child or adult, the text offers a mouthful. At the thought of Jonah in the fish, one little boy noted anxiously, “He needs God to save him!” Jonah introduces us to the God who hears, though our words are wrapped in self and seaweed, and the bars of sin and self-deception continue to imprison us. We need God to save us.

A text within the book of Jonah that is of particular interest to me is a text that in some ways seems not to fit in the story at all. Interrupting the style that quickly draws in its hearers, the text moves from narrative to poetry and back again to narrative. And yet the deliberate jaunt seems to provide a moment of significant commentary to the whole. The eight verses of poetry not only mark an abrupt shift in the tone of the text, but also in the attitude of its main character.

Spoken as a cry for deliverance, the poetic words of the prophet arise from the cold belly of the fish to the presence of merciful God. The scene is a stirring image reminiscent of David's wonder, “Where can I flee from your presence? ... If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.... If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me” (Psalm 139:7-10). By his own actions, Jonah had descended into the depths, moving from the land of life and light into a sea of darkness and dampness. Yet his words ascend to the God to whom salvation belongs, and Jonah is saved:

I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,

and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep,

into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me;

all your waves and your billows

passed over me...

When my life was ebbing away,

I remembered you, LORD,

and my prayer rose to you,

to your holy temple. (Jonah 2:2-7)

Someone told me recently that we only seem to truly pray when we are in the midst of despair. When we have no other excuses to offer, no other comfort to hide behind, no more façades to uphold, we are most likely to bow in exhaustion and be real with God and ourselves. In our distress, we stand before Him as we truly are — lives in need his mercy. “For most of us,” writes C.S. Lewis, “the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model.”

Jonah's eloquent prayer for deliverance stands out in a book that is detailed with his egotistic mantras and glaring self-deceptions. In the midst of the mysterious darkness of the fish, he seems to understand the deception that keeps him in the dark: “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (2:8). Jonah, if only momentarily, clings to a truth more secure than comfort: “Salvation comes from the LORD” (2:9).

In moments of despair and distress, may we see similarly. In times of trouble, may God remove the idols that block our view of Him and reveal his strength in our weakness, his heart in our transparency. At times the deliverance we need is that of deliverance from ourselves.

Sadly, Jonah's idols of self and comfort returned not long after the prayer was finished and his life was spewed back into normalcy. As he rages over the death of a plant and the saving of Nineveh, Jonah brings to mind Isaiah's description: “Surely the hand of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear, but... your sins have hidden his face from you” (59:1-2). Still, the book ends on a note bidding us to see that God is about the work of salvation. Whether in the lives of nations “who know not their right from their left” or in the lives of men and women blind with self and sin, God moves faithfully among us. Might we remember in distress and in safety, salvation comes from the LORD.

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was moved to Kerux Sermon #4868]

Some years ago Billy Graham’s Decision magazine printed a wonderful testimony. You can’t tell if it comes from a man or a woman because only the initials of the writer were published:

“For a long time I had been bitter about life. It seemed to have dealt me a dirty blow, for since I was 12 years old I have been waiting for death to close in on me. It was at that time I learned I had muscular dystrophy. I fought hard against this disease and exercised hard, but to no avail. I only grew weaker.

All I could see was what I had missed. My friends went away to college, then got married and started having families of their own. When I lay in bed at night thinking, despair would creep from the dark corners to haunt me. Life was meaningless.

In March of last year my mother brought home from our public library Billy Graham’s book “World Aflame.” I started reading it, and as I read I realized that I wanted God. I wanted there to be a meaning to life. I wanted to receive this deep faith and peace.

All I know is that now my life has changed and I now have joy in living. No longer is the universe chaotic. No longer does life have no goal. No longer is there no hope. There is instead “God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

I continue to grow weaker. I am close to being totally helpless and am in pain most of the time. But sometimes I am so glad I am alive that it is hard to keep myself from bursting at the seams. I can see for the first time the beauty all around me, and I realize how very lucky I am. Despair is such a waste of time when there is joy; and lack of faith is such a waste of time when there is God.”

Britain's brilliant and famous writer Oscar Wilde descended into the depths of despair when he was sent to jail for perjury, sex offenses, and complicity in England's underworld. His story of how he came "out of the depths" (as he titled his essay in Latin) reveals how his salvation lay in re-ordering his priorities:

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I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said, "Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark, and has the nature of infinity." But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is Humility.

It is the last thing left in me, and the best: the ultimate discovery at which I have arrived, the starting-point for a fresh development. It has come to me right out of myself, so I know that it has come at the proper time. It could not have come before, nor later. Had any one told me of it, I would have rejected it. Had it been brought to me, I would have refused it. As I found it, I want to keep it. I must do so. It is the one thing that has in it the elements of life, of a new life, a Vita Nuova for me. Of all things it is the strangest; one cannot give it away and another may not give it to one. One cannot acquire it except by surrendering everything that one has. It is only when one has lost all things, that one knows that one possesses it.

Now I have realized that it is in me, I see quite clearly what I ought to do; in fact, must do. And when I use such a phrase as that, I need not say that I am not alluding to any external sanction or command. I admit none. I am far more of an individualist than I ever was. Nothing seems to me of the smallest value except what one gets out of oneself. My nature is seeking a fresh mode of self-realization. That is all I am concerned with. And the first thing that I have got to do is to free myself from any possible bitterness of feeling against the world.

Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that...

The fact of my having been a common prisoner of a common jail I must frankly accept, and, curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted that I have not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted at all. And as the gods are strange, and punish us for what is good and humane in us as much as for what is evil and perverse, I must accept the fact that one is punished for the good as well as for the evil that one does. I have no doubt that it is quite right one should be. It helps one, or should help one, to realize both, and not to be too conceited about either. And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.

I have a confession to make. For years I hated the Book of Psalms. I knew that many Christians looked upon it as their favorite biblical book, that the church had incorporated these poems into public worship, and that overtones from the King James Version of Psalms still reverberated beautifully throughout the language. But, hard as I tried, I could never get excited about actually reading Psalms.

People around me seemed to use the book as a spiritual medicine cabinet: "If you feel depressed, read Psalm 37." "If your health fails, try Psalm 121." That approach never worked for me. Instead, I would with uncanny consistency land on a psalm that merely exacerbated, not cured, my problem. Church historian Martin Marty judges about a third of the psalms to be "wintry" in tone, and when feeling down I would accidentally turn to one of the wintriest psalms and end up frostily depressed.

More than anything, Psalms confused me. It seemed to contradict itself violently: psalms of bleak despair abutted psalms of soaring joy, as if the scribes had arranged them with a mockingly dialectical sense of humor. After a few minutes' reading, though, the poems would begin to sound boring and repetitious, and I wondered why the Bible needed 150 psalms - wouldn't 15 suffice to cover the basic content?

I tried to address the problem by studying the book systematically. I learned to appreciate the poetic craft involved in Hebrew parallelism, and to recognize the different types of psalms: imprecatory, lament, ascent, royal, thank-offering, and so on. After acquiring all this knowledge, I read the psalms with a heightened sense of comprehension but, alas, with no heightened sense of enjoyment. And so for years I simply avoided the book. You can find a psalm that says anything, I reasoned. Why bother with them?

I now realize how impoverished I was. In my fixation with the details of the psalms - their categories, interpretive meaning, logical consistency, poetic form - I had missed the whole point, which is that Psalms comprises a sampling of spiritual journals. They are personal letters to God. I must read them as an "over-the-shoulder" reader, for the intended audience was not other people, but God. Even the psalms for public use were designed as corporate prayers: God was their primary audience as well.

I suppose I had been unconsciously trying to fit the psalms into the scriptural grid established by the apostle Paul. But these are not pronouncements from on high, delivered with full apostolic authority, on matters of faith and practice. They are personal prayers in the form of poetry, written by a variety of people - peasants, kings, professional musicians, rank amateurs in wildly fluctuating moods. Sometimes the authors were vindictive, sometimes self-righteous, sometimes paranoid, sometimes petty.

Don't misunderstand me. I do not believe Psalms is any less valuable, or less authoritative, than Paul's epistles or the Gospels. Nevertheless, the psalms do use an inherently different approach. They are not so much representing God to the people as the people representing themselves to God. Yes, they are part of God's Word, but in the same way Job or Ecclesiastes is a part of God's Word. We read the speeches of Job's friends in a different way than we read the Sermon on the Mount.

Understanding this distinction changed the way I read Psalms. Formerly, I had approached the book as a graduate student might approach a textbook: I skimmed the poetry in search of CORRECT AND IMPORTANT CONCEPTS that could be noted and neatly classified. Psalms resists such systematization and will, I think, drive mad anyone who tries to wrench from it a rigid organizational schema. I began to approach it in a very different way.

Let me illustrate. I own a worn, black Scofield Reference Bible that belonged to my father. Because he died when I was 13 months old, I have no conscious memories of him. Yet even now I can learn something of his relationship with God by reading the notes in the margins of that Bible, for he used the white space to record a kind of spiritual journal. Certainly, he never had me in mind when he wrote those notes; I did not yet exist. But years later I can be moved, challenged, and convicted as I read about his relationship with God.

The psalms are far more formal than my father's scribbled notes, of course. They came out of a common context, God's covenant relationship with Israel, and were expressed in beautiful, sometimes highly structured poetry.

But now, as I read them, I begin by trying to project myself back into the minds of the authors - just as I project myself back into the mind of my father who wrote those fragmentary notes. Could I pray these prayers? I ask myself. Have I felt this peculiar anguish? This outburst of praise? I come to them not primarily as a student wanting to acquire knowledge, but rather as a fellow pilgrim wanting to acquire relationship. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our minds. More than any other book in the Bible, Psalms reveals what a heartfelt, soul-starved, single-minded relationship with God looks like.

Poetry works its magic subtly. In modern times, at least, we rarely seek out poetry in order to learn something. We turn to it because the poet's shaping of words and images gives us pleasure and moves our emotions. Yet if the poet is successful, we may gain something greater than knowledge; we may gain a transformed vision. And that is the magic the psalms have ultimately worked on me. They have transformed my spiritual vision and my understanding of relationship with God in these three ways:

First, the psalms help me reconcile what I believe about life with what I actually encounter in life.

When I was a child, I learned this mealtime prayer: "God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for this food." Its cadence has a certain incantatory charm, and indeed the prayer sounds as if it could have come from Psalms. What could be simpler than that prayer? Two foundational assertions of theology and a spirit of thanksgiving are all expressed in one-syllable words.

Yet praying that simple prayer with honesty and conviction has been for me, at times, an Abrahamic trial of faith. God is great? Why don't we see more conspicuous evidence? Why is it that the scientists, who make their living studying the wonders of natural creation, are less likely than an illiterate peasant to attribute those wonders to God? Why have more Christians died for their faith in this century than in all others combined?

God is good? Why did my father, a young man with unlimited potential as a missionary, die before reaching the age of 30? Why did all those innocent Jews and Christians die without justice in the Holocaust? Why is the most religious portion of our population, inner-city blacks, the most poverty-stricken and hopeless?

Thank him for this food? I kept up that practice even through smart-alecky days of adolescence, when I gave more credit to the abundance of American rivers and the wizardry of farmers. But what of the Christians in Sudan or Ethiopia? How can they thank God while dying for want of food?

If reading the last three paragraphs has made you slightly uncomfortable, perhaps you should read Psalms again. They are journals of people who believe in a loving, gracious, faithful God in a world that keeps falling apart.

The psalmists often expressed variations on the themes that I have mentioned. Why should those nasty Amalekites, Hittites, Philistines, and Canaanites, not to mention the juggernaut empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, take turns crushing God's chosen people? Why should David, anointed by God to be king, spend a decade hiding out in caves and dodging the spears of Saul, whom God had ordered to step down? How can they be thankful when there seems so little to be thankful for?

Many psalms show their authors fiercely struggling with such questions. Sometimes the psalmists are able to align the emotions of faith with the doctrines of faith in the very course of writing the psalm. But sometimes they cannot, and at this point the seemingly random ordering of the 150 psalms comes into play.

The most startling juxtaposition of psalms occurs early on. Psalm 23, that shepherd song of sweeping promise and consummate comfort, follows on the heels of Psalm 22, which opens with the words Jesus quoted from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Both psalms are attributed to David, but the two could hardly form a more glaring contrast.

True, David does find some sort of resolution in Psalm 22, by looking ahead to a future time when God will rule over the nations and the poor will eat and be satisfied. But he makes clear how he feels at the moment of writing: "I cry out by day, but you do not answer.... I am a worm and not a man.... Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me - ... All my bones are out of joint.... My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth." Such sentiments are light years away from "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.... Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life."

Another juxtaposition occurs with Psalms 102 and 103. The first (subtitled "A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his lament before the LORD.") eloquently expresses the despair of an aging, weakened man who feels abandoned by all friends, and by God. It reads like a catalog of pain scratched out by a hospital patient in a feverish state. Yet the following psalm is a majestic hymn of praise that includes not one note in the minor key.

I doubt many pastors choose to preach on those two psalms together - one or the other, maybe, but not both. But I have learned to appreciate Psalms simply because it does encompass both points of view, often adjoined with no calming transition. "Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits," says Psalm 103. The author of its nearest neighbor is trying his best not to forget God's benefits, but that's no easy task in his condition, with his bones burning like glowing embers and his diet consisting of ashes and tears.

I, for one, am glad my Bible includes both kinds of psalms. A time may come when I will feel like the author of Psalms 22 or 102, and if that time comes, I will take comfort in the fact that spiritual giants - most notably, Jesus himself - have felt that way too. And although I may groan and cry out and resist the trial that has me in its net, I will also try to remember the wonderful message of Psalms 23 and 103.

Taken together, the 150 psalms are as difficult, disordered, and messy as life itself. Oddly, that fact gives me great comfort.

Second, the psalms teach me how to praise.

Americans are notoriously bad at adoration and praise. We have not the tradition of British subjects, who curtsy to the queen and wait for her to speak first. We feel more comfortable roasting our politicians in comedy revues than bowing to them.

Frankly, the whole notion of God asking us to sit around saying nice things about him can seem rather alien. Why does he need our praise anyway? As C. S. Lewis said in his REFLECTIONS ON THE PSALMS, "I don't want my dog to bark approval of my books."

Lewis goes on to suggest that we might best imagine praise by thinking of our instinctive response to a great work of art, or a symphony, or extraordinary beauty in any form. The natural response is, first, to pause and enjoy the surpassing beauty - almost as if kneeling before it - and then to announce it to other human beings. Such a response of shared enjoyment works on many levels: "The Northern Lights were spectacular in the Boundary Waters!" "I wish you could have been with us in Venezuela - we flew up this canyon and suddenly the clouds parted and there was Angel Falls." "Weren't the Chicago Bears devastating yesterday?"

Praise takes the instinctive response of shared enjoyment (Ever try keeping a great joke to yourself, or the fact that you just got engaged?) and raises it a few notches. In praise, the creature happily acknowledges that everything good and true and beautiful in the universe comes from the Creator. That acknowledgment expresses our proper position before God. It works on us as well as on God, by reminding us of who we are with respect to him.

According to Psalms, praise need not be sober and reflective. The psalmists praised God with sensuous abandon, with loud musical instruments and dance and incense. Their worship services may well have been closer in tone to a sports pep rally than a sedate symphony concert.

Many of us stumble over how to express praise in a culture in which it seems alien. The wonderful contribution of the psalms is that they solve the problem of praise deficiency. They provide the words; we merely need to enter into them, aligning our inner attitudes with the content of the psalms.

Evidently, when the ancient Hebrews encountered something beautiful or majestic, their typical response was not to contemplate the scene, or to analyze it, but rather to praise God for it. Their fingers itched for the harp, their vocal cords longed for the hymn. For them, praise was joy expressing itself in song and speech, an inner health made audible. And because of them, we too can enter into that health.

Third, the psalms give me a model of spiritual therapy.

Not long ago I wrote a book titled DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD. The publisher worried over the title. It seemed faintly heretical to introduce a book with a negative title into Christian bookstores filled with books on the marvelous Christian life. But in the process of writing the book, I found that the Bible, and especially Psalms, includes detailed records of people disappointed with God (to put it mildly). Some psalms could be accurately titled "Furious with God," "Betrayed by God," "Abandoned by God," "In Despair about God."

It may seem strange for sacred writings to include such scenes of spiritual failure, but actually their inclusion expresses an important principle of therapy. A marriage therapist will often warn his or her new clients, "Your relationship may well get worse before it gets better." Grudges and resentments that have been covered over for years may resurface. Misunderstandings must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.

The 150 psalms present a mosaic of spiritual therapy in process. Doubt, paranoia, giddiness, meanness, delight, hatred, joy, praise, vengefulness, betrayal - you can find them all in Psalms. Such strewing of emotions that I once saw as hopeless disarray, I now see as a sign of great health. From Psalms I have learned that I can rightfully bring to God WHATEVER I feel about him. I need not paper over my failures and try to clean up my own rottenness. It is far better to bring those weaknesses to him, for he alone has the power to heal.

The odd mixture of psalms of cursing, psalms of praise, and psalms of confession no longer jars me as it once did. Instead, I am continually amazed by the spiritual wholeness of the Hebrew poets, who sought to include God in every area of life. They brought to God every emotion experienced in every daily activity. For them, there were no walled-off areas; God could be trusted with reality.

Because many psalms were written by Hebrew leaders (73 are attributed to King David), the book offers a unique behind-the-scenes view of a people's emotional history. I know of no comparable collection of private reactions to an ancient history. In Psalms we can read what a king prayed after committing adultery and murder, what he prayed after escaping an assassination attempt, and after losing a crucial battle, and after dedicating a new capital city to God.

That process of "letting God in" on every detail of life is one I need to learn from. In the busy, post-Christian, industrialized West, we tend to compartmentalize our lives. We fill our day with activities - getting the car repaired, taking vacations, going to work, mowing the lawn, chauffeuring the kids - and then try to carve out some time for spiritual activities such as church, small groups, personal devotions. I see none of that separation in Psalms. Somehow, those people managed to make God the gravitational center of their lives so that EVERYTHING related to him. To them, worship was the central activity in life, not the thing to get over with to resume activity.

Psalms has become for me a stepping stone in the process of recognizing God's true place at the gravitational center. I am trying to make the prayers first prayed by the Hebrew poets authentically my prayers. The New Testament writers did this, quoting Psalms more than any other book. And the Son of God on earth did likewise. He too relied on them as the language of relationship between a human being and God.

I am sure that making the psalms my own prayers will require a lifelong commitment. I sense in them an urgency, a desire and hunger for God that makes my own spiritual life look anemic by contrast. The psalmists panted for God with their tongues hanging out, like an exhausted deer pants for water. They lay awake at night dreaming of "the fair beauty of the Lord." They would rather spend one day in his presence than a thousand years elsewhere. It was the advanced school of faith these poets were enrolled in, and often I feel more like a kindergartner. But now that I've started to read the psalms again, maybe some of it will rub off.

Many times, we are led to believe that God is good to us because we are good. But here is a truth we must embrace: God is good to us because God is good.

In spite of this truth that we see proclaimed clearly in the Scriptures, all of us probably have experienced or witnessed life-challenges that seem to contradict the truth, “GOD IS GOOD.” All of us have seen or experienced things that just don't add up. As matter of fact, if we added up all of the adversity we experience in life, we might feel like sometimes, God had abandoned us. And in these moments, we wonder, “Are you there, God?”

Some of us might be saying, “I'm too spiritual to admit that! We all know that God doesn't abandon us!” Well, maybe so, but have you ever heard of Mother Teresa? She is the late Roman Catholic nun whose aid to the poor and needy of Calcutta, India, served as the picture of faithfulness and devotion to God. But according to recently released letters that she wrote, there were times when even Mother Teresa felt abandoned by God. It's true!

Listen to some of her statements: “I am told God lives in me -- and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul,” she declares in one of the letters. In another letter, Mother Teresa states, “In my soul, I can't tell you how dark it is, how painful, how terrible, I feel like refusing God.”

That's Mother Teresa! If she has experienced times where she questioned the closeness of God, surely we do too. How do we handle it when we feel we have done the right things but things didn't turn out right? We must begin to live out the truth of God's Word and take comfort, as Mother Teresa did, in God's supernatural care for us.

When we feel like God has abandoned us and we question the closeness of God, remember that God IS faithful. In the midst of rough times in life, remember that God has not abandoned you and me. In fact, the very same Jesus who saves, forgives and provides peace in life promises us: “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). It's easy to think that God leaves us in the tough times in life. But in reality, God is close and faithful to us in the tough times. I have a friend who used to say, “God is closer than our very breath.” His words ring true and encourage us: When we wonder if God is there, remember that He IS faithful.

Missionary statesman Hudson Taylor completely trusted God's faithfulness. In his journal he wrote: “Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning. ... He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all. ... Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.” What powerful words. The Lord truly is experienced in handling our needs.

God isn't faithful to us because we are faithful to Him. He is faithful to us because that is His very nature! We are faithful to Him in response to His faithfulness to us. And when we are unfaithful, He remains faithful because that is who He is! One of the most amazing passages of encouragement about the faithfulness of God is 2 Timothy 2:11-13, “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”

When we follow God and circumstances are bad, and indeed they are for some of us, don't despair. Even when we wonder, “Are you there God?”, take comfort in the truth that He will never leave us. Remember God is faithful at all times and in all circumstances, even in the tough ones.

_____________

Claude Thomas is pastor of First Baptist Church in Euless, Texas. For more of his LifePoints resources, visit www.discoverfirst.org.

*

[Original illustration at this number is a duplicate of HolwickID #5556]

"When we are flat on our backs there is no way to look but up."

- Roger W. Babson

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 92.

"Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the

blunder of a life."

- Benjamin Disraeli

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 150.

According to the Denver Post, actor Richard Burton (1925-1984) wrote this in his diary in 1969:

"The more I read about man and his maniacal ruthlessness and his murderous envious scatological soul, the more I realize that he will never change. Our stupidity is immortal, nothing will change it. The same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same injustice, the same lusts wheel endlessly around the parade ground of the centuries. Immutable and ineluctable. I wish I could believe in a god of some kind but I simply cannot."

*

There was a study done of concentration camp survivors. What were the common characteristics of those who did not succumb to disease and starvation in the camps? Victor Frankl was a living answer to that question. He was a successful Viennese psychiatrist before the Nazis threw him into such a camp.

"There is only one reason," he said in a speech, "why I am here today. What kept me alive was you. Others gave up hope. I dreamed. I dreamed that someday I would be here, telling you how I, Victor Frankl, had survived the Nazi concentration camps. I've never been here before, I've never seen any of you before, I've never given this speech before. But in my dreams, in my dreams, I have stood before you and said these words a thousand times."

How do you find strength in God when your world is in ruins?

The scene is familiar: You see it with heartbreaking regularity on TV. A strong, rugged man stands beside a pile of burnt-out rubble that was once his home. He is in tears. He does not know where his family is or even if they are still alive. He has nowhere to turn for food or help. We find him pitiful and pathetic, but we are glad we are not in his shoes.

Where is this scene? Beirut? Baghdad? Dubrovnik? No, we are in Ziklag, a little Philistine town some forty miles southwest of Jerusalem. It is just over three thousand years ago, about 1015 B.C. The man is David, who later will be Israel’s king. But at this point he is in his late twenties - a refugee, an outlaw, and a failed leader who seems doomed.

What has happened? The story is this. (See 1 Samuel 30:1-6) David, fleeing for his life from King Saul, had offered his services and those of his six hundred men to King Achish, a local Philistine potentate, as a kind of Foreign Legion. Achish had given them Ziklag for their home, and they had all brought their families and settled there. They had marched with the rest of Achish’s troops to a pan-Philistine muster against Israel. But Achish’s colleagues had refused to trust David and his men in a battle against their own people and had sent them packing.

Already depressed (for no army can be told it is not trusted without damage to its morale), they had trekked back to Ziklag and found it a smoking ruin. Desert raiders, Amalekites, had sacked it, burned it, and taken captive as slaves everyone they had found there. Six hundred homes and families were simply gone; hence, the tears of fury and pain. "David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep" (1 Samuel 30:4).

When people are smarting under an unexpected hurt, they want to relieve their feelings by finding a scapegoat, someone to blame. It was so here. David’s men got ugly and turned on their leader. They blamed him, one supposes, for being so preoccupied with pleasing Achish that he had marched every single able-bodied man to the muster, thus failing both them and their families by not leaving a guard to fend off raiders. Think of living in the old Wild West where Indians and bandits roamed; men went armed; and women and children never traveled save in the company of someone with a gun. It was that sort of world, and David’s error of judgment had been real. So we move to the point where "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters" (1 Samuel 30:6).

DESPAIR AMONG THE RUINS

We can see what was going through David’s mind as he stood, alone and tearful, by the ruins of his house. His great distress was compounded by several things.

There was personal loss: His own home and his own two wives were gone. But that was only the start of it.

There was, for sure, the recognition that through lack of forethought he had failed his men and their dependents. Nothing is more distressing to a good man or a real leader (David was both) than knowing you have let down those who trusted you.

There was his total isolation. Now not only Saul and the Philistines but his own men, too, had turned against him. Universal hostility, leaving you with no one to whom you can even talk on equal terms, is hard to bear.

There was the apparent hopelessness of the situation. The Amalekites had come on camels, and David and his men were on foot. They were already exhausted from their three-day, forty-mile march. What hope was there of catching the raiders, even if David could be sure where they had gone?

Also, there was, quite certainly, a crushing sense of God’s judgment. For David had played a double game with Achish. To curry favor with his Philistine patron, he had plundered villages, massacred their inhabitants, given Achish the booty, and told him the raids had been made in Israelite territory. In fact, the raids had been against people who had nothing to do with Israel, including - yes! - Amalekites (1 Samuel 27:8). While the deception prospered, David had doubtless assured himself that he was being super-smart and that killing Amalekites was the Lord’s business anyway (see Deut. 26:17-19). But deep down, he knew that this callous, Machiavellian banditry-for banditry is what it was-merited God’s vengeance. And when he saw what the Amalekites had done to Ziklag, his conscience told him that this poetic justice was in fact the vengeance he had provoked.

David, then, was in a state of distress of a kind that might well have destroyed him. The shock of disaster, grief at one’s loss, collapse of one’s life-strategy, and a sense of undergoing just retribution can each of them have paralyzing effects, and here they were all together. "Heartache crushes the spirit" (Proverbs 15:13); "a crushed spirit who can bear?" (Proverbs 18:14).

Misery is the natural consequence of calamity, and apathy is the natural child of misery. David’s surrender to grief was an entirely natural reaction to what had happened. In his shoes, we would have done the same, and many can testify that in similar circumstances they did exactly that.

Had David stopped there, however, it would have been the end of his career as a leader and probably of his life. But he did not stop there. Challenging and finally overcoming the paralysis that grief was generating, we now see in David the spiritual reaction of faith. "But" - it is one of the great Bible "buts" - "David found strength (RSV, "strengthened himself") in the LORD his God" (1 Samuel 30:6).

How did he do it?

THE SECRET OF STRENGTH

"He prayed," suggests someone. Yes, in due course, he did. But that, I am sure, was not what came first. When feelings of despair overwhelm you, rational prayer is beyond you. You are like a person being swept downstream towards the falls; you must recover your footing on the stream bed or you are lost. The secret of recovering your footing spiritually at such a time lies in the little word think, and that was undoubtedly where David began. He thought. He did not wait to feel better, but argued with the emotions that were telling him all was lost. He made himself recall what he knew of God and thought out how it all applied to him at that moment. Thus he "found strength" in the Lord; thus he calmed his soul; thus he prepared himself to pray.

"Strengthened by thought" is the formula that fits. The medievals would have called David’s action meditating, and the Puritans would have described it as preaching to oneself. Less important than deciding what to call it is learning to do it. It is a discipline we all need to master.

Every time we pray, it is wise first to remind ourselves, deliberately, of who and what God is and how we stand related to Him through His covenant love. Never is this more necessary than when we are reeling under the impact of some shock or being deafened by the inward screams of desire or panic or pain. David acted on this wisdom. Setting himself to think, he made his rational faith reassert itself over his runaway feelings. He let his faith tell him what to think, and when he knew what to think, he could see what to do. He was a model of godly wisdom.

FIVE STEPS TO RECOVERY

I now offer a reconstruction of the series of thoughts that he forced into his disoriented, despairing heart as he stood in lonely isolation in ruined Ziklag, surrounded by men who, he knew, had mutiny and murder in mind. It is, of course, guesswork, but it is not wild guesswork. The psalms show us the logic of David’s faith clearly enough to warrant every suggestion I shall make.

I believe that David ran before his mind five thoughts, as follows:

1. MY GOD REIGNS. He thought of God’s sovereign power. He reminded himself that God is in total control of all that happens on earth, and that having brought him into this extremity, God was certainly able to bring him out of it. Remembering God’s omnipotence was the first step in recovering his footing.

The psalms are strong on God’s sovereignty and dominion. "The LORD does whatever pleases Him" (Psalm 135:6; cf. Psalm 115:3). "The seas [emblem of chaos] have lifted up, O LORD ... their voice ... their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea-the LORD on high is mighty" (Psalm 93:3-4). Or, more simply, "The LORD reigns" (Psalm 93:1; Psalm 96:10; Psalm 97:1; Psalm 99:1; Psalm 146:10). All Scripture agrees that a God who is only in control of things half the time is a figment of a disordered imagination. The beginning of stability for us all is to know that God is on the throne, that His eye is on us and His hand over us all the time. Nothing comes our way apart from His will. In the deepest sense everything is under control.

2. MY GOD FORGIVES. David thought of God’s pardoning mercy. He recalled that "with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared." In other words, right-minded reverence is rooted in a knowledge of God’s mercy in the remitting of one’s sins (Psalm 130:4). My guess is that David’s first breath of prayer was a plea for forgiveness for the callous killings involved in his bamboozling of Achish. Certainly, he dwelt on the truth that it is God’s glory to forgive the penitent and that no sin is too great to be forgiven. He knew that no chastened transgressor need ever forfeit his hope of restoration and a future with God. And as David thought along these lines, his footing grew firmer.

All Scripture confirms what David knew. "The blood of Jesus ... purifies us from all sin.... If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just [in keeping His word both to us who sinned and to the Son who died to save us] and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.... He [Jesus] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 1:7; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:2). For any who feel themselves under God’s judgment, there is forgiveness just as soon as they confess and forsake the acts that provoked the judgment.

3. MY GOD CARES. David thought, too, of God’s covenanted protection. "The LORD is my shepherd" (Psalm 23:1). Himself a shepherd, David knew that the shepherd’s job is precisely to look after the sheep, keeping them well-fed and safe at all times. So he must not suppose that men’s alienation from Him meant that God had abandoned him. Even in ruined Ziklag, God was with him to love and bless him. As David dwelt on this, his despair (I am sure) dissolved like melting snow.

All Scripture confirms what the Shepherd Psalm proclaims, namely the covenant care of God for His servants. "In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). God’s shaping of all that happens to believers so as to promote their "good"-that is, their holiness and joy-is a fact, even when it does not look or feel so. "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life" (Psalm 23:6). God’s commitment to me, to be my God who shepherds me home, guarantees that.

4. MY GOD IS CONSISTENT. Having proved His love to me in the past, He will do so again. David thought of his previous experiences of God’s goodness and reasoned that, as John Newton puts it in his sublimely straightforward way,

His love in time past

Forbids me to think

He’ll leave me at last

In trouble to sink;

Each sweet Ebenezer

I have in review

Confirms his good pleasure

To help me right through.

David had reasoned this way before Saul - "the LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:37). So now he told himself that his God, who saved him from the lion, the bear, Goliath, and Saul’s spear (1 Samuel 19:9-10) would surely act again on his behalf in his present nightmare situation. For God does not lose interest in those He has once begun to love and bless.

Ebenezer was the name of a stone memorializing God’s past help (1 Samuel 7:12). Every Christian should live by the Ebenezer principle-storing up memories of past mercies and bringing them to mind whenever reassurance about God’s love is needed, as does the exile of Psalm 42:4-6 and the invalid of Psalm 77:4-12. In this way, David found strength to face the pressures of the present, and so may we.

5. MY GOD IS FAITHFUL. He keeps His word. David thought of God’s explicit promises, such as (perhaps) Psalm 91:14-15:

"Because he loves me" says the LORD, "I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges My name.

He will call upon Me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him."

David found strength in trusting the fidelity of his promise-keeping God.

Mapping the Christian life in Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan pictures despair as a giant imprisoning believers in Doubting Castle; but the Christian gets out of despair by using "a key called Promise." Exactly! Knowing that God’s promises to us in Scripture are certain of fulfillment frees us from doubt and gives us strength to face the future.

GOD MY STRENGTH

The strength (power) of God (Psalm 24:8; Psalm 31:2; Psalm 62:11) is what theologians call a communicable attribute - that is, a quality of God that in exercise imparts its own analogue or image to man. Thus, God’s wisdom makes us wise; God’s strength makes us strong. "The LORD gives strength to His servants" (Psalm 29:11; cf. 84:5). The strength given is a capacity "to do and to endure," as the hymn puts it; a capacity that without God’s empowering we would not have. As Giver of this strength, God is called "my" or "our" strength (Psalm 28:7; Psalm 46:1; Psalm 59:17; Psalm 73:26; Psalm 118:14; cf. Isaiah 12:2).

We have been watching God give David strength at Ziklag by stirring him to the resolute thought through which he "found strength." It was gratitude for such experiences that David was expressing when he declared, "I love you, O LORD, my strength" (Psalm 18:1). And one way in which we in [the current year] learn to love God is through being strengthened at crisis times in this same manner.

Just for the record, after David had "found strength," he got guidance that enabled him, against all expectations, to restore the situation completely (see the rest of 1 Samuel 30). God does not always resolve our crises this way, but He always gives strength to cope to those who will learn to think as David thought. And that, for us, is what really matters.

Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould has said the following regarding the quest for meaning:

The pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky,

improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Human

evolution is not random; it makes sense and can be explained

after the fact. But wind back life’s tape to the dawn of time

and let it play again - and you will never get humans a second

time ... We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the

facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves -

from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way. [1]

Compare that conclusion from a prominent scientist to the thoughts of a cab driver, as recorded in Life magazine:

We’re here to die, just live and die. I live driving a cab.

I do some fishing, take my girl out, pay taxes, do a little

reading, and then get ready to drop dead. You’ve got to be

strong about it. Life is a big fake ... You’re rich or you’re

poor. You’re here; you’re gone. You’re like the wind. After

you’re gone, other people will come. It’s too late to make it

better ... The only cure for the world’s illness is nuclear war

- wipe everything out and start over. We’ve become like a

cornered animal, fighting for survival. Life is nothing.

One man declares that the arrival of humanity is "quirky, improbable, and unrepeatable." The other believes that life is, essentially, a mere animalistic fight for survival.

It may be easy to dismiss one view as academic and the other as the catharsis of a hardened cynic. Yet if we take a closer look, there is a striking similarity between them. For both, ultimate reality is impersonal and material. That is, there is nothing beyond us to give meaning to our lives. And with that starting point, whether a professor or a cab driver, the conclusion will be the same: We are left to our own devices to manufacture meaning. This is the inevitable conclusion if all of life is reduced to the chemical and molecular.

Is this really the nature of reality? Are we really nothing more than time plus matter plus chance?

In the following series I would like to present to you a counter-perspective - that there is something beyond us that gives us a framework for meaning. Because unlike the professor and the cab driver, I think we can root our meaning in more than the quirks of neurochemistry. We can find that meaning in the very being of a personal God.

_________

1. Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in David Friend and editors of Life magazine, The Meaning of Life, page 33.

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

Not long ago, we had a chance to tour a cave that has been recognized as one of the most beautiful in America. And it really does offer some breathtaking views. Now, most of the caves you can tour in America were discovered some time in the 1800's. Not this one. It was just discovered in 1969; at least by white man. I'm sure native people discovered it a long time ago. Because of a giant sinkhole that opened up that's really why it was discovered. Some adventurous young men decided to crawl down into that sinkhole and see where it led. The cave guide showed us the little hole in the rocks that they crawled through and then out into this huge room, decorated with spectacular rock formations. I don't suppose the big lights and sidewalks and the railings were there then, but they must have been amazed at what they discovered - and what millions have been able to discover because they did. And all because of a sinkhole!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Deep Holes, Beautiful Discoveries."

I'll bet a lot of folks weren't very happy about that big hole in the ground opening up. It probably was a pain for some people - potentially dangerous for others. But the "problem" of that sinkhole turned out to be the access route to beauty like those folks had never seen before. That has happened to a lot of us - when a big hole has opened up in our life. When things collapsed. And it may be that God is wanting you to look beyond that big hole - to see the undiscovered beauty that's underneath it.

In our word for today from the Word of God, He talks about folks who have had some major sinkholes open up in their lives. In Isaiah 61:1: "The Lord has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners ... to comfort all who mourn, and provide for all those who grieve in Zion." Then God goes on to show what beauty He hopes we'll discover in our grief - "To bestow on them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Beauty in the middle of ashes - gladness in the middle of mourning - praise in the middle of despair.

When things collapse in our life, we are keenly aware of what we've lost. Unless we go deeper, unless we go looking, we will miss what He's wanting us to gain - the things He wants us to see that we would never see without the collapse.

It's in our hurting times that we can see in the person we married some beautiful strengths that we either have forgotten or never noticed. If you let the cave-in drive you closer to your children or your parents, you may see in them a beauty that you've missed before. If you look the right direction, a time of loss can be a time of finally seeing the everyday blessings in your life that you've taken for granted. The hole that's opened up may provide an opportunity for people to really show you how much they love you, for you to appreciate your Christian friends in a new way, for you to tell people you've prayed for about your Jesus. And they'll listen to you now because of what you've been through.

Most of all, when things collapse you can see the faithfulness and love and power of your Lord in ways that we can only see when we're desperate and beyond what we can fix, what we can handle. This season when things are caving in can be a season of life-changing discovery, as well. You can't make the hole in your life go away, but you can go through it to discover beauty that you could never see any other way.

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. 'Practical Answers to Real Life Issues'

*

More suicides take place at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge than any other place on earth. On average, one person jumps every two weeks; over 1,200 have jumped to their deaths from the span. Bridge-jumping is by far the most efficient form of suicide since jumps from higher than 250 feet into water are almost always fatal (by comparison, slitting the wrists is fatal in only 5% of cases).

Dr. Jerome Motto, a psychiatrist in the Bay Area, had a patient who committed suicide from the bridge in the 1970s. “I went to this guy’s apartment afterward with the assistant medical examiner. The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’” Motto sat back in his chair. “That was it,” he said. “It’s so needless, the number of people who are lost."

Many jumpers wrap suicide notes in plastic and tuck them into their pockets. “Survival of the fittest. Adios – unfit,” wrote one seventy-year-old man. Another wrote, “Absolutely no reason except I have a headache.”

In the United States today, someone takes his own life every eighteen minutes, and suicide is much more common than homicide. Yet the issue is rarely examined.

Twenty-six people have survived the plunge from the Golden Gate. Ken Baldwin was severely depressed on an August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over the railing. “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable – except for having just jumped.” He survived but with severe injuries.

Kevin Hines was eighteen when he took a bus to the bridge one day in September, 2000. After treating himself to a last meal of Starbursts and Skittles, he paced back and forth and sobbed on the bridge walkway for half an hour. No one asked him what was wrong. A beautiful German tourist approached, handed him her camera, and asked him to take her pictures, which he did. “I was like, nobody cares. So I jumped. My first thought was, What the hell did I just do? I don’t want to die.”

Dr. Richard Seiden, a suicide expert at Berkley University, did a study titled “Where Are They Now?” which followed up on 515 people who were prevented from attempting suicide at the bridge between 1937 and 1971. After, on average, more than twenty-six years, 94% of the would-be suicides were either still alive or had died of natural causes. “The findings confirm previous observations that suicidal behavior is crisis-oriented and acute in nature,” Seiden concluded; if you can get a suicidal personal through his crisis – Seiden put the high-risk period at ninety days – chances are extremely good that he won’t kill himself later.

[see also #27870]

Paul was in jail, not because he had done anything wrong, but because he refused to deny his Lord. The specter of death was imminent. Though his life was spared this time, within a few years he was martyred for his unwavering testimony that Jesus is the Savior of the world.

As he wrote a letter to his dearest friends, Paul declared his intense desire to know his Lord more intimately. His words are powerfully poignant: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).

Paul understood something fundamental. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central event of the Christian faith. It is the central message in our Christian witness. It is the source of our hope and the strength of our life.

The power Paul sought was not a quest for political power, financial prosperity or personal influence. It was far deeper than that. He longed to have such a relationship with God that the deepest needs of his heart would be fully satisfied in Christ alone.

• The resurrection of Jesus has power to revive the broken heart.

A sad reality of human existence is the depth of loneliness many people experience daily. As social beings, we draw strength and purpose from interacting with others. Many have no close relationships with others who fully love and accept them. They have no one with whom to share their deepest and most intimate thoughts.

One day, Charles Weigle returned home from a preaching tour. He found a note from his wife. She had left him, taking their small daughter with her. Overcome with despair, he saw no reason to live, no purpose in life. Over the next few years he frequently contemplated suicide. Some years later, sitting at the piano in his home, his fingers began idly to course their way over the keys. Reflecting on God’s sustaining grace, a melody emerged and blended with the words in his heart. Within 30 minutes, he had penned a song -- “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus” -- that has since comforted thousands:

I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus,

Since I found in Him a friend so strong and true;

I would tell you how He changed my life completely;

He did something that no other friend could do.

No one ever cared for me life Jesus,

There’s no other friend so kind as He;

No one else could take the sin and darkness from me;

O how much He cared for me.

• The resurrection of Jesus has power to reclaim the empty heart.

Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century mathematician, philosopher and physicist, observed that the human heart is like an “infinite abyss.” After suffering multiple ailments for many years, he was converted to faith in Christ. Following his conversion, he devoted himself to contemplations on theology and philosophy. His most famous work from this period is “Pensees.” Reflecting on the vacuum in the human heart, he wrote, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” (Pensees, 148/428) In spite of his brilliance and his contributions to mathematics, Pascal realized that life apart from God is empty. He found his refuge in Christ alone.

• The resurrection of Jesus has power to save the seeking heart. Of course, the most fundamental message of Easter is “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

The Bible contains a series of stories of people in successive generations who were lost, who sinned, who needed a Savior. The great patriarchs and matriarchs of Scripture were flawed and fallen men and women.

Jesus emerges from the pages of Scripture as the solitary figure to rise above the downward pull of sin. As the Son of God, he had infinite capacity to absorb the guilt and shame of the sins of others. His death on the Cross fulfilled God’s plan. As a holy God, God demands that sin must be punished. As a merciful God, God Himself provided a sacrifice for sin. The Just One (Jesus) would die for the unjust ones (humanity). He died for you and me! But ... and this is great news ... his death did not end the story! In the ultimate statement of power over sin and death, Jesus rose from the dead. As the resurrected Lord, He stands willing and able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25).

A consistent theme of biblical proclamation is that the seeking heart will find its salvation in Christ. Isaiah wrote, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6). Jeremiah wrote, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Jesus Himself said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

When Paul wrote his poignant letter, he expressed a profound truth: there is power in the resurrection! On this Easter weekend, what greater joy could you find than to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord? John the Apostle expressed it so wonderfully in John 1:12: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

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Roger S. Oldham is vice president for convention relations for the Southern Baptist Executive Committee.

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #24095]

Key Bible Verse: God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5b).

After helping the San Diego Padres into the World Series, pitcher Dave Dravecky was traded to the San Francisco Giants. As 1988 opening day pitcher, he beat archrival Los Angeles, 5-0.

Then in October 1988, doctors discovered cancer in his left deltoid and operated, removing half the muscle in his pitching shoulder. In a thrilling comeback, Dave returned to the mound in August and pitched the 1989 Giants to a 4-3 win over Cincinnati. But the humerus bone, weakened by radiation therapy, snapped during a game in Montreal.

During the next year, the illness recurred, forcing the cancerous limb's amputation. Jan, his wife of 14 years, suffered burn-out. Friends they'd counted upon withdrew. Dave describes those enormous physical and emotional adjustments.

“There were times when I did feel like I was at the end of my rope. But the key was knowing I didn't have to worry about having enough strength to hold onto the rope because I knew God was holding onto me. That's where the true strength really is,” he emphasizes. “God promises to never leave me nor forsake me no matter how low I am. Cancer introduced me to suffering, and suffering is what strengthened my faith.”

Thought to Apply:

“Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.”

-- Christian N. Bovee (author, lawyer, 19th century)

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Adapted from: Path to Victory (International Bible Society, 1993).