Finding Hope Even When Life Brings You to Despair

Do you ever feel cast down while walking through a hard season? Do you find it helps to know you aren’t alone in how you feel? I get it. 

Sometimes, I get anxious, wanting to control all my outcomes. Times when fear floods my mind, and the “what if this” and “what if that” scenarios want to march around inside my head. 

I can quickly start to feel down and out, thinking about things I fear might happen and wondering how those things will actually play out in my life. 

I have lost count of the times I have fallen on my knees before God, pouring out all my worst-case scenarios before Him. He stills my heart, and then, down the road, I am not proud to admit I struggle with them again.  I guess I will till I reach heaven, and just one more thing I can add to my long list of reasons why I need Jesus.

But the good news is I am not alone. I am not the only one who has struggled to understand, wrestled through all the unknowns, and needed help putting things in perspective when the hard things in life bring them to despair and heartbreak. Times when life is less than we hoped for. It can unsettle our hearts and leave us with burdensome thoughts that steal our rest and peace. 

David felt he had every reason to despair as he wrote the words of Psalms 42:11 (KJV).

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

He was far from Jerusalem and far from feeling the presence of God. 

His enemies taunted him. 

He wanted God to move for him, and yet still he waited. 

He was depressed.

He was oppressed. 

Yet when David counted all the reasons he had to be in despair, he realized he had many more to bring him to hope. 

Despite what it looks like, sometimes we, like David, must bring ourselves to praise amid our hardships. We step out to praise Him long before our situations change out of faith. We step out in the belief we never walk into all those unknowns without an Almighty God who goes with us. 

We have hope because whatever has brought us to such a lowly state will prove to be but a stepping stone to higher heights with our God.  How do we know for sure? God is faithful. He has proven to be over and over again. 

He will never bring us low without first planning to lift us up. What He has done before He can do again. 

So I will ask myself, “Why are thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I will praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.” 

I will allow the thoughts that flood my mind to lead me to praise just like David. I will not stay cast down because I will choose to praise the One who always makes me glad. 

Yes, what God has done before He can do again, and a God who parts the sea, quenches the fire and raises from the dead, can surely take care of me. 

With God, we are never without Hope, and therefore we have much reason to praise.

Friend, I hope you join me.  We will bring down every thought to the obedience to Christ by praising our way through. 

All of life’s unknowns and thoughts of worst-case scenarios may bring us first to fear, but because of whom we serve, they won’t have the final say.