You just got turned down for the sixth time for a job promotion. We all would understand why you want to leave that place.
The recent CAT scan validated your worst fear: the cancer has spread. You cry out in anguish, “Why me, God?”
You hadn’t been feeling well at all lately,. Oh no, a déjà vu all over again? Yes indeed, a third miscarriage. You are now so done with trying to have a family.
All of us have experienced what we deem as hopeless situations, some of us feeling powerless to conquer an eating disorder; others of us suffocating under a pile of seemingly insurmountable debt; and others of us yet wallowing in regret because we feel trapped in a loveless marriage.
Maybe you have been out of a job for months and you don’t have a single lead on the horizon. Maybe you’re a single parent trying do it all, but realizing you can’t. Maybe you’re an employee working for a corrupt boss who’s ripping apart your conscience.
All of us have gone through major crises that made us feel like our life was unraveling at the seams. We felt that if one more problem surfaced, we wouldn’t; we’d go down, and drown in a pit of despair. We felt hopeless.
Abraham and Sarah could identify. They wanted to be parents – like most couples who wed. They also wanted a big family, because back in the culture of their day, big families gained communal respect and even signaled the blessing of the gods. But every month their high hopes came crashing down. Time slowly ebbed away, with their seasoned years eclipsing their child-bearing years. Their dream to be parents over a large family and legacy turned into a nightmare.
Then Abraham encountered God – Who transformed their hopelessness into soaring hope – and later, the hope realized. Why not attend this Sunday to learn more on this subject as we hear the Bible’s encouragement in a sermon I’ve entitled, “Hope Amid Hopelessness?”
