This post is part of a 31-day series.
"I hate hope's guts."
Yesterday I said: Sadness isn't a sin. Unbelief is a sin.
I argued that sadness is an appropriate response to the world's and our own fallenness. In addition, it can be appropriate to feel that "there's nothing I can do." Did not wise Solomon conclude the same?
"Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 2:20
It is, after all, the single requirement of the gospel to come to the end of yourself and give up hope in your works.
However.
"There's nothing I can do" ≠ "Nothing will ever change."
This is where the question of belief comes in. God has promised that something will change; namely, His people.
"We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."
2 Corinthians 3:18
Despite the unglamorous, muddy trenches of depression, God is transforming us from glory to glory.
When I am tempted to hate hope, do I believe He is changing me?
Long, even lifelong, stretches of emotional struggle can lead to a sense of futility. What does it matter? What difference does anything make?
The difference faithful suffering makes is eternal, because the God Whose we are is working an eternal, as-of-now-unseen purpose. He will be glorified--somehow--by my tedious struggle.
Do I believe this?
Looking around and looking within, sometimes despair seems logical. But it can also be idolatrous: I want to be strong, rather than being weak and allowing Jesus to be strong. Jesus--the One whose purpose is hidden from me; the One who could snap His fingers and make my life easy but doesn't; the One who seems silent in my darkness.
There is an unbelieving, despairing sadness.
And there is a believing sadness that clings to flickering hope.
"The boy's father cried out and said, 'I do believe; help my unbelief.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment