As human beings we are capable of despair and depression. There are things in our lives that are calculated to cause despair. The actualities of life sometimes overwhelm and we begin to look down over our circumstances, our failures, our missed opportunities, and our unintentional hurting of others. Despair comes when there seems to be no hope of things to come.
In I Kings 19:5 we find that the angel did not give Elijah a vision, an exegesis of the scripture or any other outstanding thing. He simply told him to do an unremarkable thing . . . "arise and eat." When God's Spirit is able to get into our despair He tells us to do the most ordinary things. When God comes He inspires us to do the most natural and simplest of things. And, in the doing of them, we find that God is there. When God's Spirit tells us to do something and we do it, we find the despair is gone. Later in that chapter we see the word of the Lord as God's revelation comes to Elijah because he crawled out from under that tree. When we arise and obey, we literally enter into a higher plane of life and worship.
In Matthew 26:46 we find the disciples have failed to stay awake with Jesus and it produces despair. A sense of the irreparable will bring us despair. That's when we say, "There's no use in trying anymore." This is not exceptional but common place in ordinary human experience. Jesus comes to them and basically says this opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that, . . . "but arise and go to the next thing." His challenge is to allow the past to sleep on the shoulders of Christ, and to do the next thing, which is to trust Him wholly and to pray on the ground and basis of His Redemption. We have had experiences like this in our lives. But His challenge is for us to never let the sense of failure keep us from "arising and doing the next thing."
The hope from despair comes when we know that "in us (in our flesh) dwelleth no good thing." And our hope is: as God shows Himself we are raised up by the hand of God. God can do nothing until we reach the limit of our possible. Rev. 1:17 says, "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." When we see our limitations, we see His limitlessness. Another place in scripture I am reminded of says, "My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up." Yes, even despair can lead us to "arise, . . . look up" and . . . worship. We need to arise and look up and see what God is doing on mission in our world! . . . and join with Him. mjm
