Feeling hopeless can be like wandering around a really dark room and trying to find a lamp. When you first enter you pause for a moment, hoping that your eyes will adjust to the darkness and you’ll be able to make out a shape somewhere in the room. When you still see nothing but darkness, you begin to move cautiously through the room, gently waving your hands through the air in an attempt to locate a lamp or some other source of light. Since you have no idea of the layout of the room, you’re not even sure if there is a light source.
Sometimes we find ourselves in hopeless situations as we wander through life here on earth. Just like the dark room analogy, we will search desperately in the situation for some sort of hope. It is an unfamiliar territory that we didn’t plan on being in, so we struggle for some point of reference to hold on to. When we don’t find any, we will begin to stumble around searching on our own for an answer that will make sense of the pain or discouragement we’re faced with. After we’ve searched for a while, we may even conclude that there is no hope. We may fear that we will never find a light source in the darkness of our despair.
But Jesus is the light source! If we’ve put our hope in him for salvation, we’ve got a light source that never leaves our side. When we enter a dark room of hopelessness we do not need to search for a light, we only need to remember to turn ours on! When we cling to Jesus, we can know that even when we have no idea what tomorrow brings he does. God loves us enough to have given his one and only Son for us. There is no way he will allow us to be beaten down and defeated. We may feel that way sometimes, but it is not the reality of who we are in Christ Jesus. When we put our faith in Jesus, we became children of God and heirs to his promises! (Galatians 3:26-29)
The Bible mentions hope over 2,000 times. God did not want us to miss this! And I believe that it is one area that the devil will try his hardest to deceive us in. He will whisper things to us like: “you’re never getting out of this” or “this situation is too far gone”. But fortunately, God has given us plenty of truth in this area to counter the lies with. I encourage you to search the Bible for the word “hope” and see for yourself, but I’ll share some of my favorites.
Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. – Hebrews 10:23
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. – Lamentations 3:21-22
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:30-31
When the devil turns the lights off and starts to throw his lies at you in the darkness, you pull out your light and shine it in his face!