Utter Despair

It's amazing how we take our lives and the things in which we are going through and never bother to look around at the people near us or even"I lift up my eyes to the hills.From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord,who made heaven and earth." (Ps 121:1-2 ESV). I know for me life has been a challenge from my marriage to my kids, my job, even sometime living life itself, but in my challenges I'm in good company. As I walk with the Lord certain areas of my life seem to run a little more smoothly, but I still battle depression. Through my depression I have learned to ask questions. There are times however I wish that I had never been born there are two men in the Bible that had the same feeling Job (Job 3:1) and Jeremiah "Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me." (Je 15:10 ESV). I have these feelings around the same points in my life like these brothers have as well. Job has just lost everything his wife has told him to curse God and die he had three friends show up and sit with him for seven days. (Job 2:9 &13). Now as for a buddy Jeremiah he was having a problem with the state of the world at that time. As I look around at the condition of not only our country but our world I long to cry out to God. I see folks like myself that cannot afford health ins. Our economy that is supposed to be getting better shows me and those like me no signs of strengthing. AIDS is leaving more and more orphans all over but in Africa especially. In India children are being abandoned because their parents cannot afford to raise them so they live and work on the streets scraping by. C.H. Spurgeon once said " I remember the time when I dared not go to sleep, for fear I might wake up in hell.

Even the greatest man in the history of the world face his own level of despair. Christ in the garden said these things "saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” ⁴³ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. ⁴⁴ And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Lk 22:42-44 ESV). Christ has shown us the best response that we can have in our times of despair, we must pray more earnestly & he was obedient even until death(phil 2:8). So when we pray we are expecting to hear from God and while we wait on his response we should do what we know we must until we are told other wise.

The one thing which we must remember is that Christ has given us victory. He is our Christus Victor : "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." (Col 2:13-15 ESV). So every time depression, despair, or sorrow want to attack you; remember that Christ has won and we have won in him. He has brought you through so many things before just think back and praise him for what He is doing and what He has done. To Jesus be all glory and honor and praise.