Do Wish You Didn’t Exist? Help for Despair

I wrote this to another brother in Christ, and I thought it was worth sharing. 

A lot of us get overwhelmed by despair. Even in Bunyan’s classic Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian is nearly crushed by the Giant Despair.    

If despair is filling you with feelings of wishing to not  exist because of pain and horrible things you’ve endured, take heart that you are actually in good company: 

King Solomon felt this way: 

“1 Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.

2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.

3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, 

but then he said after the dark period of the soul: “13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Reverence God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” - Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. 

The Prophet Jeremiah despaired and wished he never was: 

“Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.” - Jeremiah 15:10

And yet He made it through and God revealed the coming New Covenant in Christ to Him,

“31 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,

32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.

33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." - Jeremiah 31:31-34

Then there is Job who lost everything and said: 

“1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

2 And Job said:

3 "Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, 'A man is conceived.' 

4 Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. 

5 Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 

6 That night-let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. 

7 Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it. 

8 Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. 

9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, 

10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. 

11 "Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? 

12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? 

13 For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, 

14 with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, 

15 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. 

16 Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light?”  - Job 3:1-16

“18 "Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me 

19 and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. 

20 Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer.” - Job 10:18-20

And yet Job talked directly with God and all was restored: “And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” - Job 42:10

For us Christ promises in the next life of we endure in this one:

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.” - Matthew 19:29

Let us remember our Lord God Jesus is not unfamiliar with suffering: 

I. As Child he was being hunted by Herod who wanted him killed, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Matthew 2:16) 

II. Jesus was born homeless, no toom at the inn, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7) 

III. Jesus was refugee, “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him” (Matthew 2:13)

IV. Jesus was persecuted by His family, “One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat.When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.” (Mark 3:20-21) This is why later He says this, “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them. There was a crowd sitting around Jesus, and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.”Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”Then he looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will (John 6:40, believe in Jesus as Son of God) is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:31-35). This continued, “Since You are doing these things, show Yourself to the world.” For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.” (John 7:4-5). In fact the only half brother (son of Joseph and Mary see Matthew 1:24-25) who believes eventually is James who wrote The Book of James. 

V. Jesus lived homeless, “Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) 

VI. People were constantly trying to murder Jesus, “5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” (Mark 3:5-6)

VII. Jesus was was so stressed his sweat/ wept blood, “And having been in agony, He was praying more earnestly. And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44) Medical science calls this, “Hematohidrosis is a rare condition in which a human being sweats blood.” 

VIII. Jesus was flogged with cat-o-nine tails which is whips with spikes and glass tips, “Then Pilate had Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe, and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they slapped him in the face” (John 19:1-3) 

IX: Jesus was nailed to a cross, “The soldiers nailed Jesus to a cross.” (Matthew 27:35), “Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek,” (John 19:20), 

X. He Affixated, suffocated to death, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30)

XI. And when He rose from the dead He bire all of these scars, “As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!” (John 20:20). 

Truly He was, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3) 

And yet He went through Great Suffering to save our souls. 

Remember Christ said, “"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” (John 15:18) 

Our God Jesus Christ is not unable to fellowship our sufferings, but has suffered all things so that He may intercede for us. Remeber He holds your tears in a bottle, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8). That is the kind of God we serve, He fellowships in our sufferings and keeps all our tears on his book, and oneday will wipe away all tears, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) Amen.