Hope for the Hopeless

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
Psalm 42:5, NASB

David knew what it was to be in despair. He was accustomed to walking in desolate places, places where there was no water and no certainty of food. He was familiar with discouragement and doubt.

He could have descended into hopelessness. Perhaps he did. The words, Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? are not the ones of a man walking in confidence. He was broken and uncertain.

He knew where to turn in those times. When he ran out of hope, he turned to the One who was and is all hope. He let that Person comfort his heart, not with solutions or miracles, but with presence.

David learned the lesson over and over again. He spent much of his life in the wilderness, in the dark and lonely places. He may have desired the miracle, but God gave him something much more secure and amazing: presence. God told David much what he said to Paul centuries later, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

Hope doesn’t mean the absence of despair, discouragement, or doubt. It simply means having a source of eternal hope to turn to when one’s own hope—one’s frail, mortal hope—runs out. That is the hope that strengthens and comforts and gives a person the courage and ability to walk in trusting obedience even when everything seems hopeless.

Hope can seem to disappear, but it’s always present. Keep the promise on hand with Write Right’s Emergency Hope Kit, a journal for the writing life.

Image: James Emery (Creative Commons)