In Despair?

There is really no book in the world, apart from the Bible, that is more up-front about the inevitability of suffering and the hardness of life.

Life is hard.

And it’s not just hard for bad people. The best people, wonderful people, kind and helpful people, suffer as well. Life brings huge disappointments and tragedies. And the Bible unflinchingly gives examples. 

Here’s one.  

Paul… that great Apostle Paul of the Bible… once felt in despair.  

He writes in 2 Corinthians 1:8: “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”  

Despair. One definition is… to feel trapped without an exit.

A person can live for weeks without food. They can live for days without water. They can live minutes without oxygen. But to despair is to feel an overwhelming hopelessness, as if death is knocking at your door.

It seems odd to some that a Christian like the Apostle Paul would even talk like that. After all, in yet another of his writings, Paul says, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”  Romans 8:18  His feelings of despair might seem to almost go against Jesus’ promise in John 10: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

So, what exactly did Paul experience in Asia which caused him to despair of life itself?  

I don’t know the precise answer to that question. But we can take a guess.  

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul gives us a list of some things he endured. Many of them make my life seem like a picnic. Paul writes: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

We don’t know which of those things – or something else – caused Paul to write: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”  

But wait! There’s more. Paul doesn’t stop with that. He adds in the next verse, “But that was to make us not rely upon ourselves.” 2 Corinthians 1:9. 

Hardship and despair are wonderful teachers. After trying to pick up a huge log in my yard and receiving back pain for a month, I learned that I needed to ask my neighbors for help the next time I tried that. I learned something.

We can learn from despair. Paul tells us what he learned: “We despaired of life itself… but that was to make us not rely on ourselves… but rather to rely upon God who raises the dead… on Him, we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.”  2 Corinthians 1:8-10.

If Elijah, King David, and the Apostle Paul suffered moments of despair, guess what we might expect? We shouldn’t be surprised when we have some really tough moments in life.

Yet each time you write the numbers 2024, you are testifying to the history changing event of a Savior who came to earth, lived the perfect life that we should have lived, and then died the death that we deserved to die. On top of that, Jesus accomplished something no one else in all of history has done… He was raised from the dead, having completed the payment for all your wrongs against God and man.  

Even the best of us are going to have moments of despair. But good news! Despair teaches us not to rely upon ourselves. It teaches us to lean into the arms of the God who raises the dead… into the arms of a Savior who loves and forgives us and invites, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28.

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