Hopelessness

Hopelessness is the darkest of all human experiences. It happens when a person can see no future worth living. Hopelessness strips away all motivation for living depriving us of all enjoyment and fulfillment.

A 2003 article in the New Yorker magazine describes an unknown man jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. The height of the bridge is 220 feet. The bridge spans the open sea, and a jump from the bridge is lethal. Only one person is known to have survived, and that is with critical injuries. The person hits the surface of the water at 75 miles an hour, causing almost certain and immediate death. The man’s psychiatrist, Jerome Motto, said this suicide affected him the most all the suicides he had dealt with. Following the man’s death, the psychiatrist accompanied the assistant medical examiner to the man’s apartment. The man was in his 30s and lived alone. They found in his apartment a suicide note that he had left: “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.” The note underscores the fragile state of mind of many who live in severe depression.

This past week I received word that someone I knew who took his life. I was shocked but only reminded of how much people struggle to find purpose and meaning while hiding it from those around them. People lose hope in the future because they have experienced repeated disappointment, causing them to become obsessively negative. Just because we are followers of Christ does not give us immunity against such hopelessness. The clouds of darkness can block the sunlight, so we can’t see God’s sovereign purposes.

Jeremiah, while surveying the carnage and devastation left by the Babylonians when they conquered Jerusalem, wrote the Book of Lamentations. The prophet feels absolutely hopeless until he begins to think about God’s faithfulness:

Lamentations 3:21-25 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;

The prophet Isaiah says look up to heaven if you want hope:

Isaiah 40:28-31 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.