If You're Feeling the Pull of Hopelessness Too
Because to say "I was wrong to despair" is to say, "Actually, there is hope."
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. - Romans 15:13
I saw a kind of vision the other day of a grey, lifeless future for a place and people I love. It was unexpected in that the scene wasn’t a projection of some pre-existing anxiety. No, this was a newly planted seed of fear, introduced after I’d witnessed a sad, real-life scenario that made me think, What if this is the future lying ahead for us too?
I told Jeff later how it threw me off, the colorless scene of decay. It drained me of hope regarding things I have been called to do and believe God for. And it induced a kind of discouragement that was especially prevalent during our early years in ministry, seasons we endured by the grace of God and The Lord of the Rings.
In Tolkien’s trilogy, despair is a tactical tool used by the Dark Power and for us, deep discouragement was feeding into temptations toward anger, discontent, impatience, and anxiety. If we were standing bellybutton-deep in ministry as waves crashed into our backs, hopelessness was the undertow about to bring us under.
Those days, Jeff and I would watch Peter Jackson’s movies together at night and I’d tear up listening to the audiobooks in the car. The hobbits— little people on an impossible mission—were my literary companions as I began learning to hope against hope. But the character I resonated with most was not one of the good guys, and I thought of him two weeks ago as I described to friends what it felt like this haunting vision was doing to me.
In The Return of the King, Denethor (a ruling steward of the greatest kingdom of Men) succumbs to the Dark Power, but not in the way other characters do. He is not tempted by promises of strength, riches, or glory. Instead, he is driven mad through a stone that allows him to see the overwhelming strength of the enemy’s armies. In the end, when his city comes under siege, he refuses to fight—and ultimately, to live— because he is sure of their defeat. Tolkien writes of him,
As the peril of his realm grew he looked in the Stone and was deceived…He was too great to be subdued to the will of the Dark Power, he saw nonetheless only those things which that Power permitted him to see. The knowledge which he obtained was, doubtless, often of service to him; yet the vision of the great might of Mordor that was shown to him fed the despair of his heart until it overthrew his mind.
The first time I read that, I knew it was describing me.
There are times we grasp at the one Ring because we lust after what it offers. But often, the work of the enemy is subtler. If he is not able to get us to sin outright, he slowly siphons hope until we find ourselves suffocating in a vacuum of despair. Our sense of reality shifts until it seems inevitable to us that Satan and sin and evil will win and always win—in our own lives, in the lives of those we love, in our churches and communities and the whole world. Faith and hope and joy begin to feel foolish and naive. Obedience becomes futile, fruitless, and impossible. At that point, there is no reason to continue to trust or follow God, or even if you do, to expect any good to come of it.
Sometimes behind our disobedience lies a hopelessness fed by the enemy’s half-truths, which is to say, his most convincing lies. Like Denethor, who only saw things the evil Power let him see, we see only evil and grief, destruction and doom, but not the hope, help, and faithful Presence we have been promised for our endurance. It feels like we’re being realistic, when in reality we’ve been led astray by a deception that’s thousands of years old.
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I’ve been in Numbers recently, the part of the Old Testament recounting the Israelites’ 40-year journey in the wilderness. At the heart of their disobedience, their grumbling and rebellion, was unbelief (Hebrews 3:18-19).1 Time and time again, God’s people looked at the insurmountable odds (no food, no water, in desert) and the strength of their enemies (Pharaoh, armies, giants) and gave into despair (“God brought us out here to kill us.”) In the face of very dangerous and very real threats, they had been asked—and failed—to believe that the God who’d delivered them from Egypt would keep his promises to them now and in the future.
This is also me. I’ve mentioned in the past about how I’ve needed to learn that godliness is not the same as Stoicism, it is not remaining unaffected by sad and hard things. But as I’ve allowed myself to see suffering and evil and sin for what they are, I have felt myself slipping at times from rightful grief and anger into discouragement and despair. Yet it is in those slippery places that God has taught me what it means to hope against hope.
Christian hope “stretches far beyond the limitations of one’s own psychological strength, for it is anchored not just in the soul of the individual but in God’s self-disclosure in history,” writes Henri Nouwen. It is not merely “permeated with optimism against all the odds of life,” but grounded in Christ himself, who proved to be a “definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation the there is light on the other side of darkness.”2 For Christians, hope is not wishful thinking. It is recognizing what is and will be true, even if we haven’t seen it yet. It is anchored on God’s character and the death and resurrection of Christ in whom all God’s promises are “Yes!”
For me, in those early days in ministry til now, hoping against hope has meant clinging on for dear life to the promise that Jesus is building his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That though saints may fall, God will indeed one day present his church blameless before him by his blood. And though it seems like we are losing, the story is not over. The gospel continues to be the power of God for salvation. His Spirit is still saving, changing, breathing new life. There is still time yet for prodigals to come home. These are reasons to hope.3
I have also fought hopelessness on more personal fronts. I know how the enemy lies to us about ourselves, saying things like, “You’ll never change,” and falsely prophesying destruction and failure and shame over us.4 Here, I’ve learned that hoping means trusting that he who began a good work in me will complete it. That there is no condemnation in Christ. That he will keep me from stumbling. 5
More recently, I have felt hope waning in other ways. In physical pain, I’ve looked at my middle-aged self in the bathroom mirror and thought, I can’t do this for another 40 years. Similarly, this past week, I had conversations about how hard it is to imagine serving God and people into old age while remaining joyful, tender-hearted, and repentant. What if there are decades ahead of me? It feels like such a long fight with slim chances. But these places where I am tempted to lose heart are the very places where God is forging faith, the “assurance of things hoped for.” And this testing is the very way God has told us he produces character, endurance, and hope.6
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There’s this one line from the Lord of the Ring movies that made its way to our family quote board in those early years. It was spoken by the Elven prince Legolas to his friend and leader Aragorn, the future King of Men. On the eve of a battle they’re entering massively outnumbered, Legolas believes they’re leading soldiers to certain death. There is no reasonable hope of victory. They argue, but before the night is over, Legolas approaches Aragorn and says, “We have trusted you this far; you have not led us astray. Forgive me, I was wrong to despair.”7
Forgive me, I was wrong to despair. This was (and remains) a confession for us in two senses of the word: As an admission of our error, a petition that God forgive us for our unbelief and presumption.8 But also as a declaration—that though it seems like Satan, sin, and death are winning and will just keep winning—No, this isn’t how it will end. No, we are not alone. No, our obedience and labor and prayers and tears are not in vain. No, the one who has led us this far will not lead us astray. Because to say I was wrong to despair is to say, Actually, there is hope.
I am NOT saying that despair is always a matter of unbelief. God made us embodied souls, and in this broken world, whether because of our physiology and brain chemistry, life events, or other unknown causes, deep depression can be experienced by the most faithful believers.
The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen
One of my prayers writing Peace over Perfection was that it would minister to Christians who feel this way. That in being set free from misperceptions of who God is and how he sees them, believers would come to experience a sense of hopefulness that would then manifest in joyful, free obedience to his commands.
1 Peter 1:6-9, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 5:3-5, also, this song on repeat.
Here’s the scene. Even spliced like this, it still gets me.
“Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.” Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
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