When Hopelessness becomes overwhelming

                                                                           

In the days following September 11, 2001 Peter Jennings, reporter for ABC News took up smoking again to counter the stress of reporting the horrific news of 911.  He was diagnosed a short time later of inoperable lung cancer and died not long after. Like the proverbial leaky faucet the constant bombardment of bad news into our lives has the ability to erode our self confidence and demoralize our character.

Following the days of our loss I could no longer bare to listen to the daily grind of bad news from the media. To listen to the additional daily grind of bad stuff that was happening in the world was only aggravating the grief I was experiencing at the moment.  Jesus cautions us in Matthew 7 about exactly this issue. He stressed the importance of making sure your house was built on a firm foundation so that when the winds and the storms came it would not fall apart. The house built on the rock stood longer than one built on sand.

Which is exactly what is happening in the post modern world where people are neglecting their houses by neglecting the very foundation that supports that house.   The single most important decision I ever made for my life was the one to invite Christ into my life in the Spring of 1974. .   Rather than worrying if whether the sand that sits below would sift with each passing rain I was able to rest on the knowledge that Jesus would see me through my periods of hopelessness.

I remembered one illustration which still makes sense today. It was a train analogy.  The Engine pulls the train and the caboose is at the end of the train. The engine represents the word of God and the caboose represent our feelings.  What we often do is we allow our feelings to guide our lives. What happens when you put the caboose at the head of the train? Does it pull it? No.  The train goes nowhere. When those periods of hopelessness passes through us it is important to allow God's word to guide us.   Our feelings must be put in perspective because they change moment by moment.  What you are feeling at this hour will not be what you are feeling tomorrow. By reading the bible we are reminded that just as God was a source of comfort for so many people in those texts God will also be there to guide us as we go through our occasional periods of hopelessness.

Bad news will always be here to stay because simply bad news is what sells newspapers and it is what brings in advertising dollars. Like the proverbial leaky faucet we can choose to turn it off and listen to what God has to say.