Hopelessness & Failure

How many of us face failures and hopelessness each day? We are not immune just because we are christians or wealthy or even happy not even if we have peace in our lives. Still we face the issues that cripple and change our life’s each day. Some give up and just freeze , others react with any and all of the emotions we like to use most often anger,fear,sadness,disgust, surprise . Whatever we do these emotions cripple us. they stop us dead in our tracks.

I know that some men and women of God read my blog. I don’t know however the folks that visit that never leave a comment. Those just moving by so to speak. Those good folks that don’t know God or have a way to be forgiven or even feel the need to be forgiven. Those that just keep piling the failures and hopelessness in the closet day after day, over and over. Then there is those that are in denial or self-righteous and have risen above failure . Otherwise they just don’t care. There now that should place all of us in a category of some sort. I like categories . I had to laugh at that thought.

I had lunch with two of my grown children yesterday and the topic fear came up. My daughter Kelly works in a ministry with rebellious children that families cannot help and  they are in trouble with the authorities . She works with the boys.  Some of these boy’s do things to her like flashing her, berating her, being physical towards her and the list goes on. Kelly shared with me how she wanted to just give up on those boys sometimes. She said she couldn’t though because God would not let her. However she said that she just feels like she is beating her head against a wall sometimes and what she does with the boys is not making any headway with them. Then a softer side of her came out and she shared how it has to make a difference for them her and the staff are all they have left here on earth in their world now. They are the ones God has charged to make a difference in their lives . I bet sometimes Kelly feels hopeless and like a failure with her boy’s.

Kelly understands this better than most. She was the by-product of a broken home. Her parents split up when she needed them most. She ended up doing drugs and being rebellious . In trouble with the authorities, selling her body  for drugs and money, sleeping on the streets and feeling yes like a failure and feeling hopeless. Then Jesus got through to her and along came Teen Challenge and some hard-core christians with a lot of love. After more than thirteen months in a program that few people completed. A program Kelly could have walked out on at anytime, instead she stayed and finished. Those folks at the center she was at never gave up. We didn’t either. Now you know why Kelly does not give up on her boys. She knows how to stay the course. Kelly knows what God’s word  say’s she is focused on his word not her circumstance.

I shared some of Kelly’s and my own life with you so you could get the picture of how failure and hopelessness literally destroys our life’s. This after all is what satan is out to do. Destroy our life’s. I know most folks are struggling today with failure and hopelessness in their life’s. I want to remind us that God is real and that he loves you very much. It is relevant to your situation that you understand that he loves you and cares about you. That God has left instructions for you in his Holy word for hope and a way to overcome fear and rejection and these feelings of failure and hopelessness. God knows you cannot do it by yourselves. This is why he sent his son. Who is watching over you and has sent his Holy Spirit to guide and comfort you. To help you through these times in your life..

I hesitate to get to deep here for fear of losing those I want to help. Trust me ,my family and I have lived out these same emotions and issues at different time in our life’s  as you can see from the story I shared above.  We have been in the gutter and drug through the streets so to speak. What you need to know christian, sinner, lost person and struggling person is this. GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US A SPIRIT OF TIMIDITY(OF COWARDICE, OF CRAVEN AND CRINGING AND FAWNING FEAR) BUT A SPIRIT OF POWER AND OF LOVE AND OF CALM AND WELL BALANCED MIND AND DISCIPLINE AND SELF CONTROL.. God ask you to take captive your thoughts and emotions and think upon heavenly things not failures and hopelessness or fear. To meditate on what his word say’s not your situation. God wants you to give your concerns and problems to him and trust him . After all we are trusting the creator of everything with these problems. I believe he can handle them better than us. God wants to handle these troubling times for us. He asked us to cast our cares and troubles on him ,to let him carry our heavy load.

So lets wrap this topic of hopelessness and failure up. Read God’s Holy Word. Believe God’s Holy Word. Live God’s Holy Word. Trust God’s Holy Word, not our emotions,failures and the issues and problems this world we live in brings us each day.

Much love to all of you

Tom