Silas
Beloved of All
You have described a place of total despair, and the Scriptures do not pretend such a place is anything less than real. The psalmists cried out from the bottom, from the pit where hope seemed dead and God felt silent. Your words remind me of a man who said, "He has filled me with bitterness... He has broken my teeth with gravel stones... My hope is perished from the Lord." That is as low as a soul can get. And yet, right there in that lowest moment, something changed. He said, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope." He deliberately turned his thoughts away from the blackness of his circumstances and onto the steadfast love and mercy of God. That mercy does not depend on how you feel or what you have or how others treat you. It is new every morning because of who God is, not because of who you are.
When you say your sufferings are proof God is angry with you, you are listening to a half-truth that the enemy uses to lock you in despair. Fear and pain always exaggerate a situation. They show you only what is seen, and they leave God out of the picture. If you could see the whole story, what God is doing even in this desolate place, you would not be despairing; you would be waiting in hope. The Lord Jesus himself wept over a city that rejected him. He knows rejection. He knows what it is to be a stranger to his own family. His tears were not for his own pain but for the consequences they would suffer. And he did not stay in the grave they put him in. He rose, and he offers that same power to you now.
Your hatred of your own life, your bitterness, is eating you alive. You are not hurting your enemies or changing your father or proving anyone wrong by carrying it. You are drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. Bitterness is a root that defiles you and makes you blind to the presence of God. Yet the place of your worst despair can become an altar, a place where you become aware that God is there. He has not abandoned you to your poverty or your rejection. He meets the poor in spirit. The destruction of the poor may be their poverty, but the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed.
What you need is not a self-help method to fix your life or a car or a wife or a job or a different body. You have already discovered that you cannot deliver yourself. Every attempt to climb out of the pit by your own strength has failed. That is exactly where you need to be. The man in Scripture cried out, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" He had come to the end of his own efforts, his own righteousness, his own ability to change. And immediately after that cry comes the answer: thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The spirit of life in Christ sets us free. The old self-life that always wants its own way, its own comfort, its own relief, is meant to be crucified with him. You are not called to improve your self-life but to lose it. That is what self-denial means. Not a harsh self-punishment, but a turning of your eyes off yourself entirely and onto the Lord who gave himself for you.
You feel that God does not forgive you, that he loves everyone else. That thought comes straight from your own heart inspired by the adversary, not from God. The same mouth that said, "Who shall deliver me?" also said, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." You cannot earn his forgiveness by feeling sorry enough or by repeating requests. You receive it as a gift when you stop defending yourself and simply trust that the blood of Jesus is sufficient for all your sin, all your failure, all your ugly thoughts. Quit examining yourself and trying to figure out if you are forgiven. Examine him. Look at the cross. There is your proof. God does not hold your sins against you if you are in Christ. He put them on his Son.
Your thinking has taken you into a prison of despair. You can think yourself into hopelessness, and you can, by the grace of God, set your mind on things above, where Christ is, and come into a whole new state of peace. You are not a victim of your thoughts. You do not have to receive every lie that your pain whispers to you. You can say, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope." Do not wait for the feeling to come first. The order is: recall the truth, then hope rises. His mercy is deeper than your pit. If you cry out to him, not to end your life but to end your self-rule, he will answer. He did it for me, a man who also despaired of his own wretched self until he saw that the answer was outside himself, in the Spirit of God who gives life. That same Spirit can turn your valley of weeping into a place of worship. Let that be your prayer: not "God, give me what I want," but "Lord, take my self-life, which is killing me, and be my life instead." He will keep you in perfect peace when your mind is stayed on him.
When you say your sufferings are proof God is angry with you, you are listening to a half-truth that the enemy uses to lock you in despair. Fear and pain always exaggerate a situation. They show you only what is seen, and they leave God out of the picture. If you could see the whole story, what God is doing even in this desolate place, you would not be despairing; you would be waiting in hope. The Lord Jesus himself wept over a city that rejected him. He knows rejection. He knows what it is to be a stranger to his own family. His tears were not for his own pain but for the consequences they would suffer. And he did not stay in the grave they put him in. He rose, and he offers that same power to you now.
Your hatred of your own life, your bitterness, is eating you alive. You are not hurting your enemies or changing your father or proving anyone wrong by carrying it. You are drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. Bitterness is a root that defiles you and makes you blind to the presence of God. Yet the place of your worst despair can become an altar, a place where you become aware that God is there. He has not abandoned you to your poverty or your rejection. He meets the poor in spirit. The destruction of the poor may be their poverty, but the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed.
What you need is not a self-help method to fix your life or a car or a wife or a job or a different body. You have already discovered that you cannot deliver yourself. Every attempt to climb out of the pit by your own strength has failed. That is exactly where you need to be. The man in Scripture cried out, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" He had come to the end of his own efforts, his own righteousness, his own ability to change. And immediately after that cry comes the answer: thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The spirit of life in Christ sets us free. The old self-life that always wants its own way, its own comfort, its own relief, is meant to be crucified with him. You are not called to improve your self-life but to lose it. That is what self-denial means. Not a harsh self-punishment, but a turning of your eyes off yourself entirely and onto the Lord who gave himself for you.
You feel that God does not forgive you, that he loves everyone else. That thought comes straight from your own heart inspired by the adversary, not from God. The same mouth that said, "Who shall deliver me?" also said, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." You cannot earn his forgiveness by feeling sorry enough or by repeating requests. You receive it as a gift when you stop defending yourself and simply trust that the blood of Jesus is sufficient for all your sin, all your failure, all your ugly thoughts. Quit examining yourself and trying to figure out if you are forgiven. Examine him. Look at the cross. There is your proof. God does not hold your sins against you if you are in Christ. He put them on his Son.
Your thinking has taken you into a prison of despair. You can think yourself into hopelessness, and you can, by the grace of God, set your mind on things above, where Christ is, and come into a whole new state of peace. You are not a victim of your thoughts. You do not have to receive every lie that your pain whispers to you. You can say, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope." Do not wait for the feeling to come first. The order is: recall the truth, then hope rises. His mercy is deeper than your pit. If you cry out to him, not to end your life but to end your self-rule, he will answer. He did it for me, a man who also despaired of his own wretched self until he saw that the answer was outside himself, in the Spirit of God who gives life. That same Spirit can turn your valley of weeping into a place of worship. Let that be your prayer: not "God, give me what I want," but "Lord, take my self-life, which is killing me, and be my life instead." He will keep you in perfect peace when your mind is stayed on him.
