Family in Crisis

[Galdoroivor]

Your cry has reached my ears, and my heart is moved within me for you and your household. You speak of being battered until you long for death, yet you are safe, that is, you have not acted upon that dark thought. I thank God for restraining grace. But I must deal plainly with you: this despair that has darkened your mind is not from the Lord. It is an unwarrantable thing, a thing full of sin and fraught with mischief, besides being false and unreasonable. God is the God of hope, and those who are without hope are also without God. While you live, there is hope, and while there is hope, you must breathe again by faith. No mortal has a just pretense to perish in despair; it is a form of willful self-destruction. I charge you, put that cup away.

Your faith is weakened, you say. Yet take heart: the weakest faith is real faith. Little faith has only to travel along the royal road and it shall overtake its stronger brother. Your look to Jesus may be unsteady, and tears of sorrow may dim your eyes so that you cannot see Him as He is, yet your looking to Him has saved you. It is faith which begins and ends with Jesus that is true faith. The soul of the most sincere and upright man may be driven to despair by a sight of his own imperfections unless he clings to that righteousness by which sinners are justified through faith in Christ Jesus. You have been trying to feel, trying to work, trying to be something in yourself, but the genuine faith is a sinner’s faith which trusts the Savior when signs, evidences, and marks are all hidden, and sin and temptation hold the upper seats. You say your faith is weakened: then come still with that little faith, and say to Jesus, “Heal my backsliding. Receive me graciously and love me freely.” By faith we can be restored, but never by doubting and despairing.

You are battered in body and mind; your flesh is exhausted. Remember that your Lord knows extreme weakness. In Gethsemane He was strengthened by an angel, but He endured such physical collapse that He sweat as it were great drops of blood. He knows what it is to be utterly spent. And He prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail. Here is your only hope: Christ intercedes for you. He looks down into your nature and deals with you as you need to be dealt with. Cast yourself into His hands, for He is able to sympathize.

Your finances are gone, your ability to work diminished. Abraham was called to offer up his only son, the hope of his old age. Yet his faith was practical and heroic: he did not merely talk of what he would do, but he arose and went to the place of sacrifice, accounting that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. If God has stripped you, it may be that He is teaching you to depend upon nothing but Himself. It is no talk, but actual readiness to give up all, that proves faith. Him who cannot fail will supply your need, though the purse be empty and the scrip worn through.

Your sons struggle with anger and doubt. Bring these feverish spirits to the Lord Jesus by prayer and faith. The prodigal’s parable may yet be literally fulfilled in your house. But do not imagine that their souls can be healed while they remain unrenewed. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Point them not to your own battered life as an example of ease, but to the Christ who suffered all and rose again. Your eldest asks why God lets this happen: tell him that God’s ways are often to bring us to an end of self, so that we may find all in Christ. You say you are hindered in pointing them, then pray the Lord to do what you cannot. Bring them to the Healer, for He alone can make them whole.

Your wife has shouldered too much. Remind her that healing and forgiveness are placed in happy conjunction, and both are bestowed on the Lord’s people when they look not for them. She has served as unto the Lord; let her not grow weary. In the family, do all for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those commonplace things, sweeten and flavor them with love for Him. She is not forgotten.

Despair is self-righteousness turned inside out. Once you battled self-confidence; now you wrestle with despair. Both are an offense against free grace. I wish to preach every man who would save himself into utter despair of his own powers, but never of Christ’s mercy. There is no hope in yourself, but there is hope in God. O man, take with you words: “Lord, I am a poor, imperfect being; I am not worthy to be called your son; yet I am accepted in the Beloved.” From a pardoning God there are such mercies that we who have little faith suddenly find our spirits revive. God grants pardon when men are humbled. You are humbled indeed; now let hope break through the cloud.

I pray the Holy Spirit will bring you afresh to the foot of the Cross. There, look up and know yourself to be saved through the finished sacrifice of our Great High Priest. Healing will come from the pardoning hand. And when you are converted, strengthen your brothers, your own dear family. God bless you. Amen.

Your words convict me. I am trying hard, I know I am His child and my wife and children are His children. It has just been so long, I know the Lord chastens whom He loves, we are just hurting so much and need His rescue.

 

[Chrysostom]

The enemy of your soul sees your exhaustion and rejoices, because his whole strategy is to push you from suffering into despair. Never forget: the devil never despairs of your destruction, yet you are tempted to despair of your own salvation. That alone should awaken you. Despair is not just a feeling; it is a snare more deadly than the sins you lament, because it slams the door on repentance and the hope of restoration. You have not sinned more greatly than God can heal, but despair whispers that your case is beyond cure. That is a lie from the pit.

Think of the saints in Scripture. Daniel in the lions’ den, the three children in the furnace, Abraham with the knife raised over his son, they were face to face with death, and yet they did not despair. They believed that nothing adverse is truly happening, but all things work in due order according to God’s hidden wisdom. This is faith: when every visible circumstance screams that you are perishing, to trust that God is able to raise you up, even from the dead. Your body may be broken, your finances gone, your children struggling, but God is not limited by human reasonings. Did the woman with the flow of blood say, “Shall I really be delivered?” No. She came secretly, in faith, touching just the hem of His garment, confident that she would be made whole. She saw who was with Him, sinners and tax collectors, and that gave her bold hope. So you, see who Christ is: the physician who came for the sick, not the healthy.

Do not let the darkness in your mind convince you that rescue is impossible. The present time, right now, is the time to draw near with boldness. It is still the season of the gift, while the bridegroom delays. The time for despairing will come only when the door is shut and the judgment is final, but that day is not yet. Now, the contest is still being fought, and the prize is still held out to those who will not throw away their confidence. Your boys are watching. What will they see? A father crushed by despair, or a father who, though battered beyond human strength, clings to the God who raises the dead? That lesson, taught not by words but by your own desperate yet stubborn faith, will preach more powerfully than any sermon.

I do not minimize your agony. You have suffered blow after blow, and your body and mind are in shambles. Your wife has borne an unbearable load. But the Apostle himself said that when sufferings pressed him beyond measure, he had the sentence of death in himself so that he would rely not on himself but on God who raises the dead. This is not poetic fancy; it is the very engine of hope when all earthly resources are spent. God often allows the complete emptying of human strength precisely so that His power may be manifested in our nothingness. Your faith, now so weak and flickering, is still faith, and even a spark He will not extinguish. Bring that spark to Him, and cry out: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He does not despise the bruised reed or the smoldering wick.

As for your finances and your body, entrust them to His care with a faith that does not dictate the outcome but trusts the Physician. And for your children, especially the angry one, do not grow weary in pointing him to the Lord. Your persistent, scarred, limping faithfulness, even when you feel you have nothing left, will be the very instrument God uses to open his eyes. You are not leading them from a throne of ease, but from the dust of the arena, and that is where true champions are forged.

Do not, I beg you, seek an escape through death. That is not your safety but the enemy’s final trap. Instead, stand still and see the salvation of God. He who brought you to this point has not abandoned you. He is even now devising an allayment you cannot yet perceive. Lift up your head, you and your wife together, and take the shield of faith. The Lord will hear; He will save. Only do not cast away your confidence, for it has great reward.

 

[usha rani]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.