Misery defined is a state or feeling of great distress or discomfort of mind or body. Despair defined is the complete loss or absence of hope. Those are feelings that the world and anyone outside of God and Christ, I imagine, grapples with daily. However, they are not words or feelings that should be in any Christian’s vocabulary. As Christians, we expect suffering, trials, tribulations, but none of what we experience and endure are greater than the God we serve. We blend in a world where we are supposed to stand out. The world panics and fears because they are without God but we, who know and serve God, should not fear as the world does and we shouldn’t be miserable either. We say that we know that, but too many of us walk around defeated and with demeanors identical to that of the world, but we are supposed to be “in this world, but not of it” and “a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9), but none of that can be achieved and God certainly cannot get any glory through us when we live as though He does not abide within us and as though we are not free through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
If you think about it, to be miserable and in despair are a choice, albeit a dangerous one because in making that choice, we completely disregard any and all promises from God. We diminish the life, death, crucifixion, and resurrection and sacrifice of Christ, as well as the grace we are under because of Him.
When we give in to these emotions, we are giving into our flesh and above all else, forsaking God. And when we do this, we are not only not acting as children of God, but we are telling Him that we don’t trust Him or believe what He has promised us.
The past year and a half have been unexpected to say the least. Many of us have lost loved ones, jobs, and our very way of life, to say the least, but what I hope we have gained is perspective, and what I hope COVID-19 or anything else have not taken away from us is our joy. We think of joy as being the same as happiness, but joy is not a mood. We just read above that it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is a state of being and the joy comes from the revelation of who God is, what He has done and the power, authority and abilities we have access to because of our connection to Him. If we are constantly living in that frame of mind, then a loss of hope or misery are not an option. They’re not feelings we have time for when we are living in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
There’s a hymn my family always sings in devotion entitled “In Times Like These”. In the hymn, the first verse goes like this, “In times like these, you need a savior. In times like these, you need an anchor. Be very sure. Be very sure your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock. This rock is Jesus, yes, He’s the one. This Rock is Jesus. The Only One…”
I bring this verse up as a reminder on that which grounds us as Christians. Our foundation is solid. It is Christ and the provisions God made so that through Him we are free. By extension, it is also the Holy Spirit who intercedes on our behalf and through whom we are gifted fruits of the Spirit, which help us to stay anchored to Christ our Rock. It, being our foundation, is ultimately a product of God’s provision, perfect will, grace, mercy, and unconditional love toward us. How could we dare even be miserable when we not only have a Savior whose very life was purposed to save the world and everyone in it and to redeem every sin that each and every one of us would commit? How could we dare even be miserable when we have literally inherited joy from the Holy Spirit? How could we dare even be miserable when in a world where millions of lives were lost God spared ours? So long as we have breath in our bodies, there is no time for misery. The only thing we ought to have time for is praise, gratitude, and joy. Because even though we don’t know what our future holds, we know who holds our future. Because there is nothing too hard for God. Because His mercy endureth forever.
My father put something into perspective for me in Sunday School. Most of the book of Psalms are written by David – a man after God’s own heart. The entirety of the book is David praising God, in great depth, and seeking him for His wisdom, His counsel, His forgiveness and His love. It is many things, including a love letter to God. David is the only person in the Bible, aside from Jesus Himself, to proclaim God as My God, taking personal ownership of God and in the 62 Psalm, He says this:
“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.” – Psalm 62:5
David sought God in all things and even when he erred, as we all should do, He sought God all the more and in this Psalm, he proclaims His need for God and how the hope he has is rooted in God. However, what David did not have that we do is Jesus Christ. Christ, as God would have it, would be a descendant of David, but David expresses a profound understanding of and faith in God even before Christ and the freedom and redemption we receive because of Him.
So, my question to us as believers is, if David, who predated our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not only exercised a profound faith and dependence on God and God alone and refused to live in misery, refused to live without the hope that is intrinsic to belief, trust and dedication in God, then what excuse do we as benefactors of freedom through Christ and from our own sin have? I believe you know the answer.
