When You Feel Hopeless

“And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” Romans 5:5(NLT)

 

By Alexandra Copeland

Probably more so than any other emotion, hope is constructed from what we believe at the very core of our beings. If we unpack this a little more, we can see clearly the reality that we are far more than a flesh and blood body. We are spiritual beings through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Once we acknowledge and witness the light of Christ in the depth of our hearts, we are forever transformed by it. Our capacity is changed. This means that our ability to produce in life changes as well. Jesus Christ said in Luke 6:44 that a tree is known by the fruit it produces. He said this to let us know that we are also producers of fruit, and the caliber of our personhood is distinguished and known by the fruit that is produced from our efforts.

This fruit is manifested in many ways. For instance, if someone is really in touch with the joy of the Lord in their hearts, everyone around them can sense it. When this person walks into a crowded room, the atmosphere is changed simply because of their presence. The intention and commitment of this person to produce fruit is communicated even without them having to say a word.

Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) tells us, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Doing good things is not only the nice deeds that we do for others. It is also the light that we give off when our hearts are fully immersed in God’s love. Hope is the feeling that springs forth from a heart that is convinced of His love. So the first thing that we have to establish is that hopelessness is a heart condition. It’s a condition that is at the core of our being. It is absolutely crucial that we confront it, because God created us in such a way that we live from the inside out, and not from the outside in. This is why He tells us in Proverbs 4:23(NLT), “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” So if we do not feel hopeful in life, we have to diagnose it as a spiritual issue of which there is a spiritual solution in Christ.

Hope is a fruit of the Spirit. It is an inside job, so we can be confident that we have ‘hope’ capacity. It behooves us to ask ourselves exactly what is keeping us from letting the reality of the Spirit shine through. We would go to the doctor immediately if we were having a problem with our biological heart organ. All of us know how important a healthy heart is to living a long and strong life, but when it comes to the heart of our souls, many of us don’t show the same level of diligence and persistence. 

We don’t go to Dr. Jesus so that he can help us remedy the problem. This is something we must do, because when it boils right down to it, issues of the heart of our souls will cause us to have problems in all areas of our existences, including with our physical hearts. So, it’s awesomely important to press into God through Christ, and pay attention to what the Spirit is doing. Whether we recognize it or not, he is addressing areas of our lives that may be causing us to feel as though we have no hope.

One of the major reasons why we start to feel hopeless is because we’ve erroneously placed our hope in a person, situation, or thing. This has left us very disappointed and disillusioned with life. God designed this thing called ‘life’ to show us when our hope in Him through Jesus Christ has slipped to second or third place, so that we can make some adjustments within our hearts and minds, and get back on board with His plan. 

We’ve been commanded by God to walk by faith, and not by sight. The things we see will not last. Things, places, and people are here today and gone tomorrow, but God’s love never fails. He is a forever God that has no beginning and no end. His love is a wonder! It’s infinite and cannot be exhausted. He’s more real than our minds and hearts can fathom, and hope in Him is eternal. It is the only reality that will never disappoint us. Romans 5:5(NLT) tells us, “And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

 

Another piece of information that we need to know is that the devil manipulates situations and people to poison our hearts with hopelessness. This is done to trick us into second guessing God’s overwhelming love for us. When we doubt God’s love, the potential of His unrelenting goodness is not met with our intention to produce fruit. So instead of bringing light into a room filled with darkness, we are tricked into adding to the feeling of hopelessness that others may be feeling.

We’re sometimes so tricked into feeling powerless that we can’t wait to get home every day and peel off that happy face we’ve put on for everyone else at work, service, or the grocery store. Our habit pattern of sinking into an abyss of despair has bamboozled us into thinking that this is who we really are. Not so. It’s not who we were created to be. Adam and Eve were created and placed in a garden of paradise. Their every need was taken care of. It wasn’t until they were tricked into thinking that they were incomplete that they lost everything. They were lied to, and they bought into the lie. They bowed to it, and all the potential that they possessed left God’s territory and was transferred to the territory of darkness. 

Jesus Christ saved us from this terrible fate and bought us back. He redeemed us, and transferred us from darkness into God’s glorious light. 2Timothy 1:10 (NLT) says, “And now he has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News.” We have to ask ourselves how it is that we can get such good news about the saving grace of our God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power He has made available through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and still feel hopeless. You may think that you should be sad because of the condition of the world, or because of this problem or that problem, but God has told us to guard our hearts against getting sidetracked by those things. We were warned in His Word that the world would be full of darkness, but we are not of the world. We’re in it, but not of it. Instead of adding to its disappointment, we’ve been empowered by God to introduce light in it’s dark places. 

When we know the Word of God, we begin to understand that He risked everything for us. If His Son had failed the mission of redeeming us from satan, all would have been lost. Heavenly Father took the risk because of His love. We ought to be forever amazed that He loves us, and that we’re the object of His affection. When we meet Him in the atmosphere of His unlimited power and our unlimited potential through it, hope is ignited. This hope cannot disappoint in the same way that God’s love cannot disappoint. He knew that His love would not fail, and we ought to know it as well.

Hopelessness overshadows our potential, and it keeps creation from responding to us in the way that God planned. We are to be fruitful, and plant seeds of His goodness through not just our good deeds, but through the intention of our hearts to be ever thankful for all we’ve received. Recognize that if you’ll get your heart in gear with God’s Word, He’ll shift your whole life and reposition you in ways you can’t imagine, but only you can start the process of this transformation. Let it begin with your personal commitment to the Father to remain planted in hope. ■ 

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.