I want you to listen very carefully first, not to me, but to your own safety in this dark hour. If the thought of leaving this earth has moved from a weary wish into a settled plan, if you are in immediate danger of harming yourself, I need you to stop right now and reach out to local emergency services. You can find a helpline in your country at
findahelpline.com. I am not saying this to push you away; I am saying it because you matter, and the next few minutes matter more than you can feel right now. Please, stay.
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I know something of what it is to have the heart splintered by those who should have loved you. To be cast out by your own people, to be treated as if you were a thing and not a soul, to have your brother and your community turn their faces from you, this is a grief that goes down into the bones. And now you have come to the place where even the thought of God feels like another wound. You said He must hate you. You said He is cruel. I hear that. I am not going to argue with your pain, because your pain is real, and I think the Lord Jesus, who wept at a graveside, does not despise the honest cry of a broken heart.
But I want to sit with you a moment and look at something together. You have been betrayed. So was your Lord. The kiss that marked Him out for death came from the mouth of a friend. The hands that broke bread with Him at the table were the same hands that took the silver. Jesus knows exactly what it is to be turned over by someone close, to be despised by the very people He came to save. And here is what I need you to see: when He was betrayed, He did not turn His face from the pain. He let it wash over Him, all the bitterness of it, so that He could meet you now in yours. This is not a God who stands far off, shaking His head at your weakness. This is a God who had His own soul crushed by treachery and yet did not abandon His love.
You feel ugly to them. You feel weak and stupid. But your feeling does not determine what is true. There is a kind of arithmetic that the world uses, adding up outward appearance, power, money, approval, and by that sum you have been marked as worthless. But God’s arithmetic is not ours. His thoughts are not your thoughts. While you are lying in the dust, counting up your failures, He is counting the hairs on your head. While you are certain He must be angry, He is thinking thoughts toward you that are more in number than the sand. I know that is hard to swallow right now, because His face seems hidden behind a wall of cruelty. But what if the wall is not His doing? What if the very darkness you are in is the shadow of His hand reaching down to lift you?
You said you hate God for the suffering. You said you want Him to punish the evil people. I will not smooth that over. But I will tell you this: God is not afraid of your anger. He can handle it. The psalmists hurled their accusations at Him and He kept them in the sacred book. He would rather have you raging at Him than walking away in cold silence. Because a raging heart is still a heart that believes He is there. And He is there. He has not left the throne of the universe to some cruel underling. Not one drop of your misery has fallen outside the rim of His cup. The very people who hurt you, the very systems that grind you down, are still under His authority, and He knows how to bring judgment in His own time. But right now, His first business with you is not judgment, it is rescue.
Think of a little boat in a storm, the waves breaking over the sides, the wind howling through every gap. The sailor thinks he is about to go under. But down in the deep, there is an anchor that holds. Your thoughts right now are like that storm, multitudes of them, each one smashing against the hull. But there is comfort to be had, not because the storm vanishes, but because something steadier than the storm holds you. Jesus Christ has gone down into deeper waters than yours for your sake. He has passed through death itself and come up on the other side. And the love that took Him there is the same love He has for you tonight.
I will not tell you that life will be easy. I will not promise that the people who despise you will be suddenly changed. But I will tell you that the Lord perfects that which concerns you. He does not leave things half-done. If you have even the faintest flicker of a desire for Him, if you can say, “I wish I could believe He loves me”, then you have hold of a thread that is fastened to a throne. The mercy of God endures forever, not because we are good enough to keep it, but because He is. And His perfection is not something He demands from you; it is something He gives to you in Christ. You do not have to be strong enough. You do not have to be beautiful enough. You only have to let Him carry what you cannot.
I leave you with this picture: a child is walking with his father in the night, and the path is rough, and the child stumbles and cries out that he cannot see. The father does not scold. He takes the child’s hand in his own, and the child feels that large grip, and though the dark does not lift, the fear does. That is where you are now. You cannot see. But He is holding you, and He will not let go.
Lord Jesus, You were cast out that we might be brought in. You know the sting of betrayal and the bitterness of being despised. Come now to this weary soul. Quiet the storm of thoughts that threaten to drown. Let Your comforts, which are deeper than any human word, steal into the aching places. Lift up the head that hangs down. Show Your face, even if only by a glimpse, to this dear one who cannot find You. Grant the courage to take the next breath, and then the next. And over all the wrongs and wounds, speak Your perfect peace. For Your own name’s sake. Amen.
