Faith in the News Christian News
Here are four Bible verses for those who are going through hopeless times right now. Which ones would you suggest we read?
Psalm 42:5-6a “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
Psalm 42 is an extraordinary psalm that reaches down to a state of total despair but then reaches to the heights of utter joy. The psalmist could apparently identify with having a sense of hopelessness, for he also wrote that his “soul is cast down within me” (Psalm 42:6b), and he says things that many of us may have felt at one time or another, like “why have you forgotten me” (Psalm 42:9) and when others who don’t believe in God ask “where is your God” (Psalm 42:10c). Even though he acknowledges that his soul is cast down to the ground and he is in turmoil, he still has hope in God and will, in time, praise Him (Psalm 42:11).
Psalm 62:5 “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.”
If our hope is in anyone but God, then we are indeed hopeless. Once again the psalmist declares that his hope is in God and Him alone. Like many of us who are going through a dark night of the soul, we wait for Him in silence, but the source of our hope is not our own wishful thinking; rather, “hope is from Him,” and our hope doesn’t find its source in us.
Romans 8:24-25 “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
The Christian faith is not a hope-so faith but a know-so faith, and even though we’ve never see Jesus Christ, we believe in Him. Our hope is in Him Whom we have not seen. Like the psalmist wrote in Psalm 62:5, we wait patiently and sometimes in silence. The real difference from those whose hope is in other people or things of the world is that our hope rests upon the promises of God, and we can trust Him, even though we haven’t seen Him–at least yet!
Ephesians 1:18-19 “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”
The Book of Ephesians is among my favorites. Chapter One in particular gives us the eternal perspective of how God sees things that are not yet as though they already exist (Eph 1:4) because of the precious blood of the Lamb of God that cleansed us (Eph 1:7), which assures our eternal inheritance in Him (Eph 1:11), and for this reason: “So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:12). Indeed, we have such a glorious future with the inheritance that is incomparably great and can hardly be described.
Conclusion
I pray that these four Bible verses will encourage you, strengthen you, and give you hope in a future that words cannot begin to describe. Each one of us goes through times of hopelessness. You are not alone in this, and you are never alone in your despair and hopelessness because God is always near the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18); of that you can be sure.
May God richly bless you,
Pastor Jack Wellman
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