Sometimes it's during the good times of life that we get so wrapped up in what's going on around us, that we think we are satisfied. Everyone is happy and life is going well. It's easy to think that we have arrived.
More often, it's during the rough times of life. Cancer. Broken marriage. Meaningless career. Foreclosure on the family home. Frustration in ministry. Rebellious child. Continued battles with temptation.
When life gets hard, despair creeps in.
And we are not alone. Godly men in the Bible despaired when life got hard.
Jeremiah wept and wrote the book of Lamentations to express his grief.
As his problems piled upon him, Job cursed the day of his birth.
And Paul feared for his life and despaired.
"We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia; that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us" (2 Cor 1:8-10).
R.C. Sproul wrote in Surprised by Suffering, "Paul entered into despair. But his despair was limited. It was not ultimate despair. He despaired of his earthly life. He was sure that he was going to die. But Paul did not despair of the ultimate deliverance from death. He knew the promise of Christ for victory over death."
To hope in anything but the resurrection seems rather pointless.
Hope for a better tomorrow?
Hope for a healed relationship?
Hope for marriage?
Hope for children?
Hope for a better job?
Hope for healing from cancer?
Hope?
Why bother?
All those things that we "hope" for are temporal. And we have no promises for any of those things changing in our lives.
But we do have hope in the resurrection.
Paul wrote in his theological exposition of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:
"If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (v 19).
If our only hope is in these temporal blessings, then we really are to be pitied.
But since we have hope in the resurrection, a hope of eternal life, then the events of this life fade in relevance to eternity.
Unfortunately, we forget this and God chooses us to remind us by bringing us through some hard times.
