How Can We Find Hope When Things Look Hopeless?
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”
Psalm 23:6 (ESV)
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? I happily see life through a hopeful lens. My glass is almost always half full, and I even tend to see the bright side in many undesirable situations. But facing the soon-to-be empty nest challenged my bright side philosophy and threatened to override its influence.
The empty nest represents one of many life transitions. You may be looking forward to the empty nest, or it might be so far removed from your life that you can’t imagine its impact. You may be facing a different life transition that is hard such as an unexpected health diagnosis, a surprise financial crisis, the loss of a dear friend, or an undesired divorce. These are all changes from one stage of life to another. One day we wake up to our normal life and then overnight the pages of life turn and with them comes a new chapter. In the new chapter, we find ourselves struggling to believe that our future will be as bright as our past.
How can we as Christians find hope when what we see in front of us looks hopeless?
A podcast conversation played in my ears one day as the speaker expressed what I’ve learned to be true. When we face uncertainty, difficulty, or threatening times, we can acknowledge our pain while also claiming the promise found in Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
To claim means to accept that something is true, even if it doesn’t look true right now. Psalm 23:6 was written by David when he was at a low point in his life. Just two short verses earlier, David wrote that he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. He was going through something very challenging and unwanted, a life transition where his present looked much worse than his past.
As David acknowledged his difficult reality, he remembered God’s desire for him. God wants goodness and mercy for us.
We may not feel God’s goodness and mercy as we look ahead into an unwanted situation, but we can trust that it’s there. God only allows what He is prepared to bring us through, and even though He isn’t obligated, God will also use this unwanted transition for good somehow in our lives. That’s another one of his promises to us.
Now let me be clear. Hard life transitions are not good. A cancer diagnosis is not good. Divorce is not good. Death isn’t good, and even a quiet, empty house is not good when the alternative is a full vibrant home. The valleys in our lives are not pleasant. They are difficult, undesirable, and obviously unwanted. The deeper the valley, the harder it is for us to believe we will ever end up back on the mountaintop, and that’s why we need the motivation to believe there is something better ahead. Psalm 23:6 reassures us that God follows us into the valley so that he can pull us back onto the mountain. And when we cling to him in the valley, we will someday look back and see his mercy and goodness when we get back to the mountaintop.
Friends, nothing that we are facing may be good, but God is good. And He desires goodness and mercy for us. When we are broken, we can bank on something good on the other side of our transition.
I’m three-quarters of the way into the empty nest now. I have one more at home and he leaves this fall. But I can attest to God’s goodness and mercy in my life during this transition. He has brought some new things for me to try and I have learned to look for his goodness and ask what’s next. I have a lot more I could say about this stage of life, but today, I want to encourage you to trust God with whatever life transition you are dreading. God has something for you, either during the transition or on the other side. It’s when we claim his promises that we find the power to believe, and our belief leads to hope. Hope never disappoints. Just ask an optimist.