Today’s Scripture Reading: Job 15:1-18:21
My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken. Job 17:11
I can’t imagine the depth of despair Job felt when he spoke these words. It’s easy to read Job’s story and move through his losses as if it’s some Hollywood movie. Friends, this really happened. Put yourself in his shoes. What would you have done?
What if…
- All your children were dead
- All of your servants were dead
- All of your animals were dead
- All of your food was gone
- All of your property was destroyed
Most of my life I naïvely thought seasons of depression, despair, and hopelessness could be avoided by Christian disciplines (prayer, Bible study, worship) and continual attitude adjustments. (Sounds like Job’s friends. Huh?)
Until…
Everything came crashing down. I call it the fall of the hurdle-jumper. As long is there’s enough space between the hurdles to recover, a hurdle jumper can go long distances, but let someone come and place all the hurdles side by side and even the best hurdle jumper will come crashing down.
In just about every area of my life I experienced a major loss: marriage, home, church, career, car, a great friend, and my Dad–all in a matter of a couple of years.
I said with Job, My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken. Job 17:11
This strong “hurdle-jumper” came tumbling to the ground and my misconceptions about depression fell as well. I needed a healing of this mental cancer that had zapped the life and joy out of me. “I” couldn’t fix me.
That was fifteen years ago. Through the grace of God, His healing power, and a good medical doctor I made it through that dark time. I’m so thankful for the lessons I learned. I didn’t realize it at the time but at my lowest God was the closest. As I look back I see those as special times.
Today I vividly understand the power that hope plays in our lives. God is the giver of hope and just like Job we can be sitting in a pile of rubble scraping our wounds, thinking hope is gone forever, while our Heavenly Father is continually saying “Don’t loose hope. Some things just take a little time. You’ll understand when You see me face to face. For now just keep your hope in Me!”
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you. Psalm 39:7
Heavenly Father, we need Your hope today. I pray for my friends who feel the way I did years ago, hopeless and depressed. Touch them through your supernatural power and send the gift of hope their way.
Jesus, remind us of the needs of the hurting. Show us who we need to call, write, or visit. Use us to be delivery agents of hope today.
In Your Name we pray. Amen and Amen!
**Our prayers become more powerful when we come together! I would love it if you would post a comment and share your prayer for the day.
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©2011, Dianne Guthmuller
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 19:1-21:34
You are so right on with this post Dianne. I’ve been through dark times, know He is my hope, and still felt the hopelessness. It was the trust factor for me. I needed to trust that he was my hope, not know that he is my hope. Does that make sense?
Colleen, that makes perfect sense to me! Believing God is going to be our hope when everything looks hopeless is a supernatural gift we should pray for, because we sure can’t do it in ourselves.
Love your comments! Keep ‘em coming!
This post is so true, not only because I KNOW Dianne but because many of us men think we can bound every hurdle in life, no matter how high or hard. Too often it’s only after we look back at the hurdles and those around us do we realize the better thing would have been to get down on our knees and pray for help.
So, with this in mind, I offer the following You Tube video as a depiction of the wrong way to bound life’s hurdles. If you see someone about to bust out of the starting gate and hurdle life’s challenges like this guy did, point them to this post and make sure they read it !