Despair Bible Quotes

When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.

The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Life is hope. Hope is faith. Faith is believe. Believe is possibilities. Possibility is miraculous. Miraculous is divine. Divine is supernatural. Supernatural is spiritual.

No parent should have to bury a child ... No mother should have to bury a son. Mothers are not meant to bury sons. It is not in the natural order of things. I buried my son. In a potter's field. In a field of Blood. In empty, acrid silence. There was no funeral. There were no mourners. His friends all absent. His father dead. His sisters refusing to attend. I discovered his body alone, I dug his grave alone, I placed him in a hole, and covered him with dirt and rock alone. I was not able to finish burying him before sundown, and I'm not sure if that affected his fate ... I begrudge God none of this. I do not curse him or bemoan my lot. And though my heart keeps beating only to keep breaking--I do not question why. I remember the morning my son was born as if it was yesterday. The moment the midwife placed him in my arms, I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding. I remember holding my son, and looking over at my own mother and saying, "Now I understand why the sun comes up at day and the stars come out at night. I understand why rain falls gently. Now I understand you, Mother" ... I loved my son every day of his life, and I will love him ferociously long after I've stopped breathing. I am a simple woman. I am not bright or learn-ed. I do not read. I do not write. My opinions are not solicited. My voice is not important ... On the day of my son's birth I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding ... The world tells me that God is in Heaven and that my son is in Hell. I tell the world the one true thing I know: If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven--because if my son sits in Hell, there is no God.

The Christian’s life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world.

Blessed is the person who desired to read the Holy Scriptures. It’s brings great reward to those who believe, trust and obey the Holy instructions.

The Bible talks primarily of two kinds of angels- Cherubim and Seraphim. But there is a third kind of angel. If you ever find yourself troubled, suffering or in despair, God may send you this third type of angel. These angels are called...'friends.

In Jesus the performance pendulum stops — both the pride of success and the despair of failure are absorbed by grace.

The Bible is the perpetual motion of the spirit, an ocean of meaning, its waves beating against man’s abrupt and steep shortcomings, its echo reaching into the blind alleys of his wrestling with despair.

When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.

As I read the Hebrew Bible, I am struck by two main verbs that refer to waiting. One is to wait with expectation; the other is to wait in the tension of enduring. It is not passive. It is an active struggle to live in the face of despair.

We are going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. So however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne."   Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right.  "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last.

Well, Espen, you're no drug addict, so why do you beg?" "Because it's my mission to be mirror for mankind so that they can see which actions are great and which are small." "And which are great?" Espen sighed in despair, as though weary of repeating the obvious. "Charity. Sharing and helping your neighbor. The Bible deals with nothing else. In fact, you have to search extremely hard to find anything about sex before marriage, abortion, homosexuality, or a woman's right to speak in public. But, of course, it is easier for Pharisees to talk aloud about subordinate clauses than to describe and perform the great actions the Bible leaves us in no doubt about: You have to give half of what you own to someone who has nothing. Thousands of people are dying every day without hearing the words of God because these Christians will not let go of their earthly goods. I'm giving them a chance to reflect.

...it occurred to me that maybe Samson's hair wasn't the source of his strength; maybe it was the symbol of his strength. And maybe when Delilah cut off his hair, he didn't lose his power because he lost his hair; he just woke up the next morning and looked in the mirror, and suddenly for the life of him couldn't remember who he was.

As I walk I mediate on the word of God. It comforts me.

We must read, mediate and affirm the writings of Holy Scriptures, to partake in the divine nature and overcome the struggles of life.

You ought to read, mediate and affirm the living word of God.

Liberty without Love is Destruction, and Love without Liberty is Despair.

Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to him. And why are we told that these treasures are hid in him who is the Revelation of God? Is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them? Are they not hid in him that they may be revealed to us in due time—that is, when we are in need of them? Is not their hiding in him the mediatorial step towards their unfolding in us? Is he not the Truth?—the Truth to men? Is he not the High Priest of his brethren, to answer all the troubled questionings that arise in their dim humanity? For it is his heart which Contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.

So here is what I see when we reclaim the church ladies: a woman loved and free is beautiful. She is laughing with her sisters, and together they are telling their stories, revealing their scars and their wounds, the places where they don't have it figured out. They are nurturers, creating a haven where the young, the broken, the tenderhearted, and the at-risk can flourish. These women are dancing and worshiping, hands high, faces tipped toward heaven, tears streaming. They are celebrating all shapes and sizes, talking frankly and respectfully about sexuality and body image, promising to stop calling themselves fat. They are saving babies tossed in rubbish heaps, rescuing child soldiers, supporting mamas trying to make ends meet halfway around the world, thinking of justice when they buy their daily coffee. They are fighting sex trafficking. They are pastoring and counseling. They are choosing life consistently, building hope, doing the hard work of transformation in themselves. They are shaking off the silence of shame and throwing open the prison doors of physical and sexual abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Poverty and despair are being unlocked - these women know there are many hands helping turn that key. There isn't much complaining about husbands and chores, cattiness, or jealousy when a woman knows she is loved for her true self. She is lit up with something bigger than what the world offers, refusing to be intimidated into silence or despair.

The problem comes when readers take these two accounts and combine them into one overarching account, in which Jesus says, does, and experiences everything narrated in both Gospels. When that is done, the messages of both Mark and Luke get completely lost and glossed over. Jesus is no longer in deep agony, as in Mark (since he is confident as in Luke), and he is no longer calm and in control as in Luke (since he is in despair as in Mark). He is somehow all things at once. Also,

8we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

When a mere girl, my mother offered me a dollar if I would read the Bible through; . . . . despairing of reconciling many of its absurd statements with even my childish philosophy, . . . I became a sceptic, doubter, and unbeliever, long ere the 'Good Book' was ended.

Eph 4:9  The fact that he ascended confirms his victorious descent into the deepest pits of human despair. [In John 3:13: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, even the son of man.” All mankind originates from above; we are anouthen, from above.

Overcome as much as you can—nay even more than you can—the sensitiveness of your mind and check the copious flow of your tears. Else your deep affection for your nephew may be construed by unbelievers as indicating despair of God. You must regretim not as dead but as absent. You must seem to be looking for him rather than have lost him.

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

Over the past several months, Amelía’s Google history had become a reference of her despair: “can’t have children, reasons for infertility in women, reasons for infertility in men, discussing infertility with husband, price of surrogate mothers, signs of depression, adoption agencies, infertility support groups…” The endless searches only provided two categories of results: medical sites that took pride in listing every worst-case scenario, and blogs written by white women with phrases like “silent suffering” and “living with uncertainty,” mixing in Bible verses about God’s Grace, none of which filled the void or helped Aimee ignore the fact that Mother’s Day was a month away and she would have to watch her family celebrate the one thing she wanted most and might never have.

Do you have enough money in the bank to make it if everything goes wrong? If you do, congratulations. Go run your business with focus and with confidence. Stick with the high road and do the things you need to realize your business plan. If not, donʼt despair. You need an alternate plan. A plan that allows you to spend a percent- age of your time each week on low-risk revenue sources. A way to bring in freelance income while you build your core business.

In my own life, I have seen God calm my fears and set my heart at rest when I praise and worship Him in the midst of my challenges. My friend, I want to encourage you, when you are riddled by destructive thoughts of fear or despair, turn your eyes upward and begin praising God for who He is and what He is able to do. Fears so easily pop into our thought-lives, and if we are not careful they can begin to dominate our minds. At that moment, allow your heart to worship Him. Praise Him that He knows all things, He can see all things, and He can do whatever He wants. Give Him glory for His sovereignty, majesty, love, and compassion. What a privilege that He invites us, His people to approach His throne and worship Him.... We can worship God day and night. Although it may seem counterintuitive, we can praise God even in our challenges and difficulties as we turn our hearts toward Him and recognize His ability to do all things. The opposite of worship would be to live with an attitude of pride, arrogance, fear, and self-centeredness.

Through reading the Bible, drunkards become sober, thieves become honest, prostitutes become pure, and drug addicts become clean. Anger, bitterness, and resentment yield to loving forgiveness, mercy, and graciousness. Selfish greed gives way to unselfish service. Crumbling marriages are rebuilt. Broken relationships are rekindled. Shattered self-esteem is restored. In God’s Word, the weak find strength, the guilty find forgiveness, the discouraged find new joy, and the despairing find hope. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible writers inspires those who read it.

After nineteen hundred years the Sermon on the Mount still haunts men. They may praise it, as Mahatma Gandhi did; or like Nietzsche, they may curse it. They cannot ignore it. Its words are winged words, quick and powerful to rebuke, to challenge, to inspire. And though some turn from it in despair, it continues, like some mighty magnetic mountain, to attract to itself the greatest spirits of our race (many not Christians), so that if some world-wide vote were taken, there is little doubt that men would account it “the most searching and powerful utterance we possess on what concerns the moral life.”2

One author, in writing of the Bible’s uniqueness, put it this way: Here is a book: 1. written over a 1500 year span; 2. written over 40 generations; 3. written by more than 40 authors, from every walk of life— including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc.: Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of Egypt Peter, a fisherman Amos, a herdsman Joshua, a military general Nehemiah, a cupbearer Daniel, a prime minister Luke, a doctor Solomon, a king Matthew, a tax collector Paul, a rabbi 4. written in different places: Moses in the wilderness Jeremiah in a dungeon Daniel on a hillside and in a palace Paul inside a prison Luke while traveling John on the isle of Patmos others in the rigors of a military campaign 5. written at different times: David in times of war Solomon in times of peace 6. written during different moods: some writing from the heights of joy and others from the depths of sorrow and despair 7. written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe 8. written in three languages: Hebrew… , Aramaic… , and Greek… 9. Finally, its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial topics. Yet, the biblical authors spoke with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation. There is one unfolding story…

7But we have this treasure in  pjars of clay,  qto show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8We are  rafflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but  snot forsaken;  tstruck down, but not destroyed; 10 ualways carrying in the body the death of Jesus,  vso that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So  wdeath is at work in us, but life in you. 13Since we have  xthe same spirit of faith according to what has been written,  y“I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14knowing that  zhe who raised the Lord Jesus  awill raise us also with Jesus and  bbring us with you into his presence. 15For  cit is all for your sake, so that as  dgrace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving,  eto the glory of God.

Command, promise, Messiah—the basic terms of the Bible’s message are ineradicably verbal and cannot be communicated in isolation from words. Bin the words and whatever else you are left with; it is not Christianity, biblical, historical or otherwise. We do need to think about how such a word-based religion can be communicated in this day and generation; we do need to avoid at all costs becoming a middle-class ghetto for frustrated academics. But we also need to be faithful to the Bible’s own form and matter, both of which involve words at their very centre. Let us not despair: the Word is not just the Word; it is the Word of, in, and through the Spirit. It is powerful in its very essence. Our task is ultimately to communicate it; the power of the communication resides in God alone. Let us remember the words of Isaiah and concentrate not so much upon technique as upon the moral attitude we should adopt: This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2).

If we follow Jesus, our status before God is righteous. The gavel has come down and our righteousness is secure in the work of Jesus Christ. God’s verdict is not subject to change based on our performance. We didn’t become righteous because of our performance, and we can’t lose our righteousness because of our performance. We don’t have to worry about getting escorted off God’s premises. We have access, we have resources, and we have blessings because of Jesus. It is easy to hear this sort of message and get excited about it. We hear a preacher talking about God’s forgiveness and grace on Sunday, and we’re like, “Woohoo! I’m in! This is great!” But then Monday comes around, and it’s really hard to apply this reality when we’re having one of those moments when we lose our minds, or make dumb decisions, or go off on somebody, or do that stupid, ridiculous thing we swore we’d never do again. Suddenly, here comes the negative emotion. Here come the bad feelings. Here comes that sense that our status cannot possibly be the same as it was in church yesterday. That’s what the Bible calls condemnation. It’s a very real phenomenon. If you are a follower of Jesus, a Christian, and have never experienced condemnation, you might be God. For the rest of us mortals, we’ve all experienced it. Guilt. Shame. A sense that our status has changed. I’m going to take this a step further. This might sound weird at first, but I think we actually, in a very sadistic way, enjoy condemnation. Why? Because condemnation is logical; and in a weird, twisted, dark sense, it gratifies our flesh. It actually feels right to feel horrible, to feel depressed, to feel dejected, to feel despair. “I messed up. I did something so stupid. This serves me right.” But in fact, condemnation doesn’t serve us at all. In the verses above, the Bible says that condemnation should have no part in our existence on this planet if we belong to Jesus. As humans, we are experts at confusing our feelings with reality. We take our negative emotions and thoughts at face value, and we think, I feel bad, so I must be bad. I feel guilty, so I must be guilty. And if I’m disappointed and mad at myself, God must be way more disappointed and mad at me. Since we feel condemned, we think we are condemned. And since we think we are condemned, we work harder to regain our lost status. Instead of going confidently to God and asking for his grace to get back up and move forward in life, we try to patch ourselves up and put ourselves back together so we can attain the status of righteous before God again. Ironically, since we will never measure up to perfection, the more we try to earn our righteousness, the worse we feel. It’s the cycle of condemnation. I find it’s far easier to believe we are sinners than to believe we are righteous. But we are already righteous through Jesus. It’s a gift, and it’s called grace. How much time do we waste as Jesus followers trying to recover what we have had all along?

The timeless promises of God are our confident hope.

The word of God gives comfort.

If we focus on the problems of life, we will be paralysed. But we dwell on the promise of God; we find the faith, hope and courage to survive life.

May you find comfort by reading and mediation on God’s word.

The great GOD is a tower of refuge to the poor. The great GOD is a tower of refuge to the needy in distress.

Lead Us Not into Temptation” With this petition Augustine makes an important distinction. He says, “The prayer is not that we should not be tempted, but that we should not be brought [or led] into temptation.”212 Temptation in the sense of being tried and tested is not only inevitable but desirable. The Bible talks of suffering and difficulty as a furnace in which many impurities of soul are “burned off” and we come to greater self-knowledge, humility, durability, faith, and love. However, to “enter into temptation,” as Jesus termed it (Matt 26:41), is to entertain and consider the prospect of giving in to sin. Calvin lists two categories of temptations from the “right” and from the “left.” From the right comes “riches, power, and honors,” which tempt us into the sin of thinking we do not need God. From the left comes “poverty, disgrace, contempt, and afflictions,” which tempt us to despair, to lose all hope, and to become angrily estranged from God.213 Both prosperity and adversity, then, are sore tests, and each one brings its own set of enticements away from trusting in God and toward centering your life on yourself and on “inordinate desires” for other things.

Billions are descending from freedom and dignity into fatalistic despair. A divorce may be necessary but at the end of the day it is resignation. Abortion is sold as “choice” but in most cases, it is fatalism—a belief that the child or the mother cannot have a good life without taking the baby’s life. Individuals resigning themselves to the death of their marriage or baby are like the fish that lost faith, and therefore hope. Even the mainstream Western church is being corrupted.4

Creating space to even contemplate the edge is an act of daring in our over-full world. When life is too full, the first step in margin writing is to create a space to breathe and read and gain perspective. Even then, with that bold step, fear can still persist. Once we have space, we don’t always know what to do with it. That space forces us to go deeper—within our heart and into the heart of God. Because we do not know and cannot control what we might unearth in that space, we avoid that sanctuary of sorts at all costs. We fill our lives too full to the brim because we flee the broad range of emotions God asks us to engage. Do we have space for joy? Room for despair? The capacity to lament? The discipline of confession? A place to be refreshed? If we can enter into the sacred space of the margins, then perhaps—with a little push from the divine secrets of harmonious page design—we might even find a place to dance lightly on the edges and design our lives accordingly.

If the bare possibility of his Lord’s death had plunged this loving and gloomy heart in despondency, what dark despair must have preyed upon it when that death was actually accomplished! How the figure of his dead Master had burnt itself into his soul is seen from the manner in which his mind dwells on the print of the nails, the wound in the side. It is by these only, and not by well-known features of face or peculiarities of form, he will recognise and identify his Lord. His heart was with the lifeless body on the cross, and he could not bear to see the friends of Jesus or speak with those who had shared his hopes, but buried his disappointment and desolation in solitude and silence. His absence can scarcely be branded as culpable. None of the others expected resurrection any more than himself, but his hopelessness acted on a specially sensitive and despondent nature. Thus it was that, like many melancholy persons, he missed the opportunity of seeing what would effectually have scattered his darkness.

March 13 MORNING “Why sit we here until we die?” — 2 Kings 7:3 DEAR reader, this little book was mainly intended for the edification of believers, but if you are yet unsaved, our heart yearns over you: and we would fain say a word which may be blessed to you. Open your Bible, and read the story of the lepers, and mark their position, which was much the same as yours. If you remain where you are you must perish; if you go to Jesus you can but die. “Nothing venture, nothing win,” is the old proverb, and in your case the venture is no great one. If you sit still in sullen despair, no one can pity you when your ruin comes; but if you die with mercy sought, if such a thing were possible, you would be the object of universal sympathy. None escape who refuse to look to Jesus; but you know that, at any rate, some are saved who believe in Him, for certain of your own acquaintances have received mercy: then why not you? The Ninevites said, “Who can tell?” Act upon the same hope, and try the Lord’s mercy. To perish is so awful, that if there were but a straw to catch at, the instinct of self-preservation should lead you to stretch out your hand. We have thus been talking to you on your own unbelieving ground, we would now assure you, as from the Lord, that if you seek Him He will be found of you. Jesus casts out none who come unto Him. You shall not perish if you trust Him; on the contrary, you shall find treasure far richer than the poor lepers gathered in Syria’s deserted camp. May the Holy Spirit embolden you to go at once, and you shall not believe in vain. When you are saved yourself, publish the good news to others. Hold not your peace; tell the King’s household first, and unite with them in fellowship; let the porter of the city, the minister, be informed of your discovery, and then proclaim the good news in every place. The Lord save thee ere the sun goes down this day.

The word of God is our glorious light for any dark situation.

Until then, my teenage soul--suspicious of cheerfulness, though still reflexively respectful of authority--would feel increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of the official soul. The official soul, as transmitted through church and Christian paraphernalia, was upbeat, incurious, happy with its lot. It did not have any heroes other than the ones who appeared in the Bible, and it was content to hear the same stories about these people over and over again. It described pain and suffering in such a way that a person might think alcoholism or the loss of a child were no more inconvenient than a tussle with the flu: after it passed, you could stand in front of the congregation on Sunday and testify that it was all better, and God was good. As far as I could tell, that was the only story told by the official soul, and the real and true sadnesses had be excised for a more mellifluous account. Which made it seem as if there were things you couldn't talk about in church, or with people from church--what made you laugh, why you cried at a movie, what made you angry, or what books you read that hadn't been written by C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, or D.L. Moody. Church was supposed to be the most important thing in life, but so much of life was left out, because so much of its trouble was assumed to be conquered. My pastor mentioned Kierkegaard in a sermon only once, and it would be a long time before I discovered that there was a storied Christian who suffered from, and so in some way sanctioned, depression, rage, sarcasm, and despair--the diseases that took hold in adolescence, for which church offered no cure.

Yet Jesus is not simply a good example. If that were all he was to us, his life would crush us with guilt, since no one could meditate on the Scripture as he does. He is, thank God, infinitely more than that. He is not just an exemplar within Scripture, he is the one to whom all the Scripture points, because the main message of the Bible is salvation by grace through Jesus (Luke 24:27, 44). The Bible is all about him. Moses wrote of him, and Abraham rejoiced to see his day (John 5:46, 8:56). The written Word and its law can be a delight because the incarnate Word came and died for us, securing pardon for our sins and shortcomings before God’s law. You can’t delight in the law of the Lord without understanding Jesus’ whole mission. Without him, the law is nothing but a curse, a condemnation, a witness against us (Gal 3:10–11). He obeyed the law fully for us (2 Cor 5:21), so now it is a delight to us, not an everlasting despair.

Where will we spend eternity—with God in that place of endless joy the Bible calls heaven, or apart from Him in that place of endless despair the Bible calls hell?

On the hard days I often remind myself to focus on what I know, not on what I feel. Feelings may be real, but feelings aren’t necessarily true. I need to renew my mind with truth! I need to preach the Gospel to myself. I need to cling to the promises of God’s Word that I know are true instead of giving in to feelings of despair. It is through renewing my mind with good and true knowledge from the Bible that my inner self is renewed and strengthened day by day.

How Great Is Our God! And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, Who keeps covenant, loving-kindness, and mercy for those who love Him and keep His commandments… NEHEMIAH 1:5 AMP When Dorothy finally met the wizard she had been searching for in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she was disappointed. The “Great and Terrible” magician, who had promoted himself as an all-powerful man with a short temper, turned out to be a normal person behind a curtain—albeit one who was good at special effects. Rest assured, when we finally meet God, we won’t have the same kind of letdown. The Bible notes God’s inestimable qualities—unconditional love, unending mercy, unimaginable strength—with reverence. The New Testament authors also repeatedly wrote about God’s mercy and compassion, lest we despair of ever coming near Him. Of course, we need to fear the holy Creator and Maker of all things and strive to do His will, but as the One who formed us, God knows that we will fail (and loves us anyway). His love is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross. Today, think about God’s love, mercy, and strength as you go about your day. When you face problems, ask Him to solve them, instead of trying to fix them yourself. Repeatedly and reverently surrender to Him—because He is great, but He’s certainly not terrible. Creator, Maker, Redeemer God—You are wonderful. Thank You for Your wisdom, strength, and love. Amen.

the purpose of all art was to lend cosmos to chaos, beauty to the land, and hope to those in despair. Lance had always believed that art should do more than just imitate life; it should guide it and steer it; keep it on the true north compass heading of our creator. That was the purpose of the Bible, and all other literature was subordinate to it.

His divine power is active in his Word. Do not underestimate, then, how much the power of God can do in your life through the Bible. The voice of the Lord can break down even our strongest defenses, defuse our despair, free us from guilt, and lead us to him. Prayer:

Mawazo ya kukata tamaa yanaweza kusababisha tukamtengeneza au kumbuni tena Mungu kwa mfano wetu sisi wenyewe, mfano ambao kwa kawaida ni tofauti kabisa na mfano unaozungumzwa ndani ya Biblia. Hivyo tunaishia kutumikia mfano badala ya kumtumikia Mungu wa kweli.

the issue at stake isn’t some right to be sexually active, but whether they can have love in their lives. Lots of people go without sex for various reasons, some for extended periods of time, without any sign of spiritual devastation or despair. But to ask someone to give up on the hope and possibility of ever getting to experience love and marriage—that is a far more serious matter.

The merchants of racial despair easily peddle their wares in a marketplace riddled by white panic and fear. Black despair piles up with each body that gets snuffed on video and streamed on social media. We have, in the span of a few years, elected the nation’s first black president and placed in the Oval Office the scariest racial demagogue in a generation. The two may not be unrelated. The remarkable progress we seemed to make with the former has brought out the peril of the latter. What, then, can we do? We must return to the moral and spiritual foundations of our country and grapple with the consequences of our original sin. To do that we need not share the same religion, worship the same God, or, truly, even be believers at all. For better and worse, our national moral landscape has been shaped by the dynamics of a Christianity that has from the start been deeply intertwined with religious mythology and cultural symbolism. The Founding Fathers did not for the most part believe what evangelical Christians believe now. Most believers today certainly do not share Thomas Jefferson’s view of the Bible. In his redacted version of the New Testament, Jefferson purged the miracles, Jesus’ divinity, and the Resurrection. But all of us, from agreeable agnostics to fire-and-brimstone Protestants, from devout Catholics to observant Jews, from devoted Muslims to those who claim no god at all, share a language of moral repair.

Poetry and Genre The hallmark of rhetoric in ancient Near Eastern literature is repetition; in poetry, this takes the form of what scholars call “parallelism.” Frequently, the first line of a verse is echoed in some way by the second line. The second line might repeat the substance of the first line with slightly different emphasis, or perhaps the second line amplifies the first line in some fashion, such as drawing a logical conclusion, illustrating or intensifying the thought. At times the point of the first line is reinforced by a contrast in the second line. Occasionally, more than two lines are parallel. Each of these features, frequently observed in Biblical psalms, is represented in songs from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Ugarit. Unlike English poetry, which often depends on rhyme for its effect, these ancient cultures attained impact on listeners and readers with creative repetition. Psalms come in several standard subgenres, each with standard formal elements. Praise psalms can be either individual or corporate. Over a third of the psalms in the Psalter are praise psalms. Corporate psalms typically begin with an imperative call to praise (e.g., “Shout for joy to the LORD” [Ps 100:1]) and describe all the good things the Lord has done. Individual praise often begins with a proclamation of intent to praise (e.g., “I will praise you, LORD” [Ps 138:1]) and declare what God has done in a particular situation in the psalmist’s life. Mesopotamian and Egyptian hymns generally focus on descriptive praise, often moving from praise to petition. Examples of the proclamation format can be seen in the Mesopotamian wisdom composition, Ludlul bel nemeqi. The title is the first line of the piece, which is translated “I will praise the lord of wisdom.” As in the individual praise psalms, this Mesopotamian worshiper of Marduk reports about a problem that he had and reports how his god brought him deliverance. Lament psalms may be personal statements of despair (e.g., Ps 22:1–21, dirges following the death of an important person (cf. David’s elegy for Saul in 2Sa 1:17–27) or communal cries in times of crisis (e.g., Ps 137). The most famous lament form from ancient Mesopotamia is the “Lament Over the Destruction of Ur,” which commemorates the capture of the city in 2004 BC by the Elamite king Kindattu. For more information on this latter category, see the article “Neo-Sumerian Laments.” In the book of Psalms, more than a third of the psalms are laments, mostly by an individual. The most common complaints concern sickness and oppression by enemies. The lament literature of Mesopotamia is comprised of a number of different subgenres described by various technical terms. Some of these subgenres overlap with Biblical categories, but most of the Mesopotamian pieces are associated with incantations (magical rites being performed to try to rid the person of the problem). Nevertheless, the petitions that accompany lament in the Bible are very similar to those found in prayers from the ancient Near East. They include requests for guidance, protection, favor, attention from the deity, deliverance from crisis, intervention, reconciliation, healing and long life. Prayers to deities preserved

7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We

I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. 2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. 3 He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.

The blessings that are promised to, pronounced upon and experienced by Christians do not of course exclude difficulties. The Bible never indicates that. But the difficulties are not inherent in the faith: they come from the outside in the form of temptations, seductions, pressures. Not a day goes by but what we have to deal with that ancient triple threat that Christians in the Middle Ages summarized under the headings of the world, the flesh and the devil: the world—the society of proud and arrogant humankind that defies and tries to eliminate God’s rule and presence in history; the flesh—the corruption that sin has introduced into our very appetites and instincts; and the devil—the malignant will that tempts and seduces us away from the will of God. We have to contend with all of that. We are in a battle. There is a fight of faith to be waged. But the way of faith itself is in tune with what God has done and is doing. The road we travel is the well-traveled road of discipleship. It is not a way of boredom or despair or confusion. It is not a miserable groping but a way of blessing.

The Bible, which ranges over a period of four thousand years, records but one instance of a death-bed conversion (the thief on the cross) - one that none may despair, and but one that none may presume.

Pray over the Scriptures. Christians just setting out on the path of prayer sometimes pray for everything they can think of, glance at their watches, and discover they have been at it for all of three or four minutes. This experience sometimes generates feelings of defeat, discouragement, even despair. A great way to begin to overcome this problem is to pray through various biblical passages.

Whether it be your heart that cries or your eyes, let your tears be not tears of despair, not tears of self-pity, not tears of hurt pride, but tears of repentance that lead to salvation.

S. Lewis put it, “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”7

Am I rooted in sincere fidelity and love to Jesus? If my heart remains unsoftened and unfertilized by grace, the good seed may germinate for a season, but it must ultimately wither, for it cannot flourish on a rocky, unbroken, unsanctified heart. Let me dread a godliness as rapid in growth and as lacking in endurance as Jonah’s vine; let me count the cost of being a follower of Jesus. Above all let me feel the energy of His Holy Spirit, and then I shall possess an abiding and enduring seed in my soul. If my mind remains as stubborn as it was by nature, the sun of trial will scorch, and my hard heart will help cast the heat the more terribly upon the ill-covered seed, and my religion will soon die, and my despair will be terrible. Therefore, O heavenly Sower, plow me first, and then cast the truth into me, and let me yield a bounteous harvest

Song and the lyric poem came first. Prose was invented centuries later. In Israel, Greece, and China came the primal, model lyrics for two and a half millennia. Read the biblical Song of Songs in Hebrew, Sappho in Greek, and Wang Wei in Chinese and be deeply civilized. You will know the passions, tragedy, spirit, politic, philosophy, and beauty that have commanded our solitary rooms and public spaces. I emphasize solitary, because the lyric, unlike theater and sport, is an intimate dialogue between maker and reader. From the Jews we have their two bibles of wisdom poetry, from the Chinese we have thousands of ancient nightingales whose song is calm ecstasy, and from the Greeks we have major and minor names and wondrous poems. However, because of bigotry, most of Greek poetry, especially Sappho, was by religious decree destroyed from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. So apart from one complete ode, we read Sappho in fragments. Yet there survive fragrant hills for lovers and dark and luminous mountains for metaphysicians. Most of ancient Greek lyric poetry is contained in this volume. Do not despair about loss. You are lucky if you can spend your life reading and rereading the individual poets. They shine. If technology or return to legal digs in Egypt and Syria are to reveal a library of buried papyri of Greek lyrics equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Gnostic Nag Hammadi Library, we should be able to keep singing and dancing for ten moons straight. For now, we have the song, human comedy, political outrage, and personal cry for centuries of good reading.

This is the royal road to comfort. Great thoughts of your sin alone will drive you to despair; but great thoughts of Christ will guide you into the haven of peace.

After more than a decade of suffering, bad news, and financial ruin, she was finally free, healed in an instant—all because she dared reach out to Him for help when every earthly avenue had ended in nothing but loss and despair.

The Bible says to love your neighbor as you love yourself, but what if Christianity has taught you not to love yourself? Then you hate your neighbor as you hate yourself—impotently, in despair.

This history of the Bible in American public life risks leaving us in a place of despair. We can feel defeated by reading about the endless times that Christians failed to hear the word of the Lord against themselves, about the ways that expediency and political power shaped interpretations more than faithfulness to God did.

Where quantifiable success is god, pride always grows strong and spreads through the soul as cancer sometimes gallops through the body. Shrinking spiritual stature and growing moral weakness thence result, and in pastoral leaders, especially those who have become sure they are succeeding, the various forms of abuse and exploitation that follow can be horrific. The fruit of nourished pride is invariably bitter. Orienting all Christian action to visible success as its goal, a move which to many moderns seems supremely sensible and businesslike, is thus more a weakness in the church than it is a strength; it is a seedbed both of unspiritual vainglory for the self-rated succeeders and of unspiritual despair for the self-rated failures, and a source of shallowness and superficiality all round.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11 For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

The Bible, the Holy Book inspired by God, is a life-changing force that transforms sinners into saints. As the living and active Word of God, it's sharper than any double-edged sword, revealing God's truth to the world. With its power to save our souls from eternal fire, teach us to live a holy life, and unlock hardened hearts, it's the greatest Book on earth. It comforts the lonely, gives hope to the hopeless, and lifts us up in despair. As Jesus Christ is the living Word of God, the Bible is our guide, wisdom, and strength, providing peace, security, deliverance, healing, and protection from all evil. Its words stand forever, even as heaven and earth pass away, and its power is revealed in everything in the world.

as well as new ones. In The Biblical Doctrine of Heaven, Wilbur Smith suggests, “In heaven we will be permitted to finish many of those worthy tasks which we had dreamed to do while on earth but which neither time nor strength nor ability allowed us to achieve.”319 This is an encouraging thought. It saves us from frantically thinking that we have to do it all now, or from giving up in despair because of the limits of time, money, and strength, and the duties that keep us from certain things we’d love to do.

God does not expose your sin to drive you to despair. God’s Holy Spirit never convicts you of your sin to drive you away. The Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin to draw you nearer to Him. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). To confess means that you are saying, “Lord, I agree with You. I have sinned. I am sorry. Show me what is wrong, because I want all barriers that might separate You from me to be removed.

My path serviced a strict interpretation of the Bible because I was weak, like a child. I needed time to grow. So I could never be a Sunday-only church gal. I had to be all in; I needed God next to me at all times to keep me from sliding back into despair.

Sometimes my need grows teeth, and I feel its bite so keenly I can’t concentrate on other things. I am distracted by pain, Jesus. Overwhelmed by it. I need your mercy to intersect my depressive thoughts. I need your hand to settle upon my heart, bringing calm to the fear that lurks there. I’m choosing to believe today that my deep pain cannot compare to your deep love. Overcome the doubts and despair I am carrying, and set me free to experience your mercy in new ways. Amen.

perplexed, but not driven to despair.

Isaiah prophesied that those living in the land of deep darkness would see a dawning light (see Isaiah 9:2). We need to remember that promise whenever we live with a painful sense of discouragement, despair, anxiety or fear. We can be sure that these things have nothing to do with the dawning light of God’s kingdom. As he did with Job, God will eventually bring us out of the darkest places of our lives.

Once, long ago, Jesus had called her name, breaking through the darkness of her oppression to set her free from the seven demons that bound her. now He broke through the hopelessness of her grief and despair. Mary might not have recognized His face, but she could never forget the sound of His voice, not when He called her name.(From "I Have Seen The Lord!")

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi LORD, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Pebbles from the brook are turned by grace into jewels for the royal crown. Worthless dross He transforms into pure gold. Redeeming love has set apart many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the Savior’s passion. Effectual grace calls deep-dyed sinners to sit at the table of mercy, and therefore none of us should despair.

Why does the Bible keep nagging us to give thanks? It’s because we quickly forget all that God has done for us; we take him for granted. According to Romans 1:21, when we fail to honor God and give him thanks, our hearts become darkened. Indeed, if left unchecked, ingratitude leads to negativity, bitterness, cynicism, and despair.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things?” What things? Why, anything! Disappointment, frustration, nervousness, despair, anxiety, injustice: “What shall we then say to these things?” Well, the answer is . . . “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Isn't that wonderful? That is resonant, that is sturdy, that is the essence of victory.

You do not make your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will wants to be lord and master. But your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you must cheerfully accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand complaining. This night Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to His easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in pride, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; He leads the way in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if He carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths. Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers or lined with velvet; it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colors; it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of Sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it that like Moses you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble. May the Lord help you bow your spirit in submission to the divine will before you fall asleep tonight, so that waking with tomorrow’s sun, you may go forth to the day’s cross with the holy and submissive spirit that is fitting for a follower of the Crucified.

The wondrous theme of the Bible that frightens so many people is that the only visible sign of God in the world is the cross. Christ is not carried away from earth to heaven in glory, but He must go to the cross. And precisely there, where the cross stands, the resurrection is near; even there, where everyone begins to doubt God, where everyone despairs of God’s power, there God is whole, there Christ is active and near. Where the power of darkness does violence to the light of God, there God triumphs and judges the darkness. Then

Yet, the gospel offers hope for wandering hearts like ours. The Bible reveals that instead of judging all of humanity in one fell swoop —God visited us in our despair. The gospel is the story of God writing himself into human history. Of course, if God really does exist, then he has been a part of the story from the very beginning. Thus, the gospel is really not our introduction to God but rather our re-introduction.

Many Christians are wringing their hands and saying, “What’s the world coming to?” The Bible has already told us that “the world and the lust thereof ” are going to pass away. We have already been told in Scripture that the world is coming to a cataclysmic judgment. We Christians are to be lights in the midst of darkness, and our lives should exemplify relaxation, peace, and joy in the midst of frustration, confusion, and despair. Time yourself the next time you read the Bible and pray. Compare this amount of time to that you spend, say, watching television. Is God getting His share of your time and attention?

We know Job's faith survived because his reaction to his devastating loss was to worship God: "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord'" (Job 1:20-21). Let me encourage you and your messed up man, should he be willing, to begin to worship God from your place of brokenness. Tina shares a dramatic story from her work as a music therapist for hospice. One day, as she prepared to leave the hospice floor at the hospital, a nurse called her back to work with a patient in respiratory arrest. Music therapists use music to match the beat of a patient's heart rate, and as the therapist slows down the beat of music, most of the time the heart rate follows, as well as the breathing. At the start of the process, the patient's wife shouted, "Sing 'Amazing Grace'?" Deciding to minister rather than work, Tina sang "Amazing Grace." The patient's distress was overwhelming. He could hardly take in air, and his chest heaved while his wife wept. Right in the middle of "Amazing Grace," The wife once more blurted out, "Sing 'Jesus Loves Me'!" Tina, switched gears and sang, "Yes, Jesus loves me." Tears streamed down the man's cheeks as he sang with her, "Yes, Jesus loves me." His words were broken and he could hardly say them, but in that moment, he worshiped the God who was about to take him home. Whatever you're facing . . . worship.

But your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you must cheerfully accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand complaining. This night Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to His easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in pride, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; He leads the way in the path of sorrow.

disgracing a friend will break up a friendship. 21 If you draw a sword against a friend, Do not despair, for a restoration of friendship is possible. 22 If you open your mouth against a friend, Do not worry, for reconciliation is possible.

We have the keys to open the Heavens door; Bible reading and prayer.

The gospel is the story of the invasion of hope into a world that knows only despair and darkness.

Iknow all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be v. muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, & the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the v. sign of His presence.

The power of the gospel still brings life where there is death, hope where there is despair, beauty where there is brokenness.