Take your time as you accept the pain of losing hope, but don’t feel guilty. Turn to God and find lasting hope in Him.
Over this year, I have been met with trouble after trouble. Life has become a nightmare. Plagued with problems during the day and plagued with nightmares at night. It goes without saying, but life tends to get harder the older we get. We encounter health issues, financial problems, and relationship troubles. All of these things have the capacity to derail our lives.
When I was a teen, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I was an adult. I knew I needed to get a job to help provide for our family. To be honest, I never really thought of a professional career because all I knew was that my family needed money. There was no luxury to think about what I wanted to do for a career. All I knew was that my family needed my help, and the only way to do this was to get any job I could.
Thankfully, my mom pushed me to go to college because she wanted a better life for me. She didn’t want me to live in poverty throughout my life as she thought a four-year degree could get you any career you wanted. Sadly, the college I went to was terrible at setting students up with career options, and they did not seem to care about our futures. While I appreciate all the things I learned at college, the leadership did a poor job of helping students get good, steady, career-based jobs.
I kid you not, I was told by the provost of the college that after I graduated I could either work at the daycare across the street from the college or a fast-food chain that is known to be Christian-based. After completing my four-year degree, with all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into it, I was being told that I could work at a job that I could have gotten straight out of high school. To say the least, I was disappointed by my life's prospects.
When we come up against overwhelming struggles and realities that don't offer clear, let alone easy, solutions, can we recover from losing hope?
Coping with Disappointment
My college was a Bible college, yet the way they treated us after graduation was far from Christian. My peers and I were thrown into the world with no career prospects. Out of the people I know from college, none of us have great jobs, and none of us are working in Christian-based full-time positions. Instead, we are contract workers, working part-time at a coffee shop, or working at a bank.
Though these aren't "bad" job options, none of these things were positions any of my peers wanted. We went to college thinking we would get a good job after graduation only to be met with dismal opportunities. As a young adult, this made me lose hope. I had just finished college, full of enthusiasm and hope, and as fast as those feelings came, they were demolished. No longer was there hope in my heart. There was only despair.
Much of the lack of job positions is due to Christian organizations becoming less and less common. Many Christian organizations have closed their doors because the world is becoming less Christian each day. What positions could have been available fifty years ago are no longer in existence. (Not to mention most Christian organizations tend to be extremely picky and won’t hire you unless you are Jesus Himself.)
If you find yourself in a similar position, know that you are not alone. Recognize that to recover from losing hope, you must first admit and accept the reality of disappointment. We live in a fallen world, and we can't treat it as anything other than a frail, unsteady, imperfect place. When we understand this, we can shift from feeling completely hopeless to recognizing our setbacks as a chance to pivot and press forward.
Finding Hope in God
Although life has a way of disappointing us, God never will. In Him, we have lasting hope. He is our ultimate pivot point. The Bible tells us, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken” (Psalm 62:5-6). As this passage tells us, we can find rest and hope in God. He is our rock, salvation, and fortress. We will never be shaken if we allow ourselves to rest in His perfection that isn't deterred by an imperfect world and our mistakes.
God is faithful, and we can trust Him. Even though the world is awful and situations can be downright terrible, we still have hope in Him. When all is lost, we have Him. Having hope in God is different from having hope in human beings. Humans can fail us, yet God never will. He will fill our hearts with hope and the promise of eternity.
Whenever I find myself getting down and losing hope, I find light and life in God. This is what I had to do after finishing college. I had thought everything would fall into place after college, but it didn’t. Even still, the hope God grants us as believers isn't lost when we feel lost. Our inability to see God's goodness up ahead doesn't discount the grace He gives us each day.
Maybe you are struggling to find hope today for a different reason, such as relationship issues or health problems. Rely on God and find your hope in Him. If relationship struggles are placing you between a rock and a hard place, give the struggles over to God. Tell Him what is going on and allow His peace to comfort you. He will be able to guide you in the next steps you should take and bring hope to your heart during the waiting period.
In the same way, if health problems are a struggle for you right now and they are causing you to lose hope, give these worries over to God. Health issues are awful and can cause us to lose hope in everything. Even if you have lost hope in the medical field and doctors, don’t lose hope in God. God can do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Moving Forward
Find your purpose and joy in the Lord and you will always be able to recover from feeling hopeless. However, this doesn’t change the fact that we have to learn to accept the pain that comes from losing hope in the first place. While God doesn’t want us to lose hope in Him, He understands when we lose hope in our situation or others. He sees the terrible things that are happening in the world and how hopeless things can feel at times, and He doesn't expect us to be anything more than human.
As we are accepting the pain of losing hope, we don’t need to believe the lie that we are alone. God is always with us, and He loves us without conditions (Romans 8:37-39). Reflect on this truth when everything feels hopeless. Life has a way of getting us down, but we can trust in God. By choosing to have hope in God, our life will look brighter. Life will become more hopeful and fulfilling.
Take your time as you accept the pain of losing hope, but don’t feel guilty. Turn to God and find lasting hope in Him. With Him, you will be able to stand firm and not be swayed by the problems of this world. God’s steady hand will keep you safe and protect you as you walk through this life. We all have troubles, yet, as believers, we will always have God. He will provide us with lasting peace, support, and hope.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Paolo Cordoni
