Can a Christian Experience Despair?
Can a Christian Experience Despair?
Yes. The answer is yes, and the church needs to stop pretending otherwise.
Despair is not a sign of failed faith or evidence that you have strayed too far from God. It is not proof that your prayers lack power or your belief lacks depth. Despair is what happens when grief strips everything else away; it is a tool often wielded by the Enemy, and it has visited some of the most faithful people who ever lived.
The Psalms are full of it. David cried out from pits. Jeremiah cursed the day he was born. Elijah, fresh from his triumph over the prophets of Baal, begged God to kill him. These were not weak men or faithless men. They were men who had lost their grip on hope and had the honesty to say so out loud.
The church has done grieving people a disservice by treating despair as spiritual failure. "Just trust God," we say. "He has a plan." These statements may be true, but they land like accusations when someone is drowning. They imply that despair is optional, that you could climb out of it if you simply believed harder or prayed more earnestly. This is cruel nonsense. You cannot think your way out of despair any more than you can think your way out of a broken leg. You cannot praise your way out of it, at least not immediately. Despair is not a problem to be solved but a state to be endured.
But endurance is not passivity, and here is where grieving Christians must take responsibility. Despair may not be your fault, but it is your burden to carry. No one else can do it for you. Not your pastor, not your spouse, not even God in the sense that He will not override your will and drag you out against your consent. He will meet you in the pit, but He will not airlift you out while you sit with your arms folded waiting for rescue.
So what does responsible despair look like? It looks like honesty: stop pretending you are fine, stop performing faith for other people, and if you are in despair, say so. Write it down. Speak it to God, who already knows and whose patience is not threatened by your candour. Your silence protects no one and delays your recovery.
Responsible despair also looks like showing up. You may not feel like praying, but pray anyway. You may not want to open Scripture, but open it anyway. You may not sense God's presence, but seek Him anyway. Feelings follow actions more often than they lead them, and waiting until you feel like doing the right thing is a recipe for permanent paralysis.
Finally, responsible despair means refusing to let it have the final word. Despair tells you nothing will change, that you will always feel this way, that hope is for other people. Despair lies. It speaks with confidence, but it does not know the future any better than you do. You do not have to believe everything you feel, especially when what you feel has been distorted by grief.
Despair is real, and it is not sin. But staying in despair when God has provided a way forward is a choice. The pit is not your home and you were not made for it. The hand reaching down to pull you out has scars on it, and it has been there longer than you realised.
Take it.
Week 1: Understanding Despair
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