Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I want to address a very common question that we receive quite often. This question about feelings of despair. You know, it’s not uncommon for us as human beings to experience despair. These desperate situations where we feel so much weight and burden and pressure.
And so many people want to know, how do we handle situations like that? Is it even possible for a Christian to endure feelings of despair? Some would say, “Well, why do we experience these issues of despair? That sounds like we have no hope.” Some would say, “Yes, of course, we endure situations where we feel despair. It doesn’t mean we’re without hope, but the situation itself seems so desperate that we don’t know what to do.” And so I want to walk through, as several people have asked, some concepts and some ideas.
If you’ve not felt this, you’ve engaged in biblical counseling, you’ve certainly addressed folks who feel like they’re walking through situations that are utterly and completely despairing. So, I want us to consider today, I want to look through the lens of a passage that Paul addresses in 2 Corinthians 1.
And I want us to ask these questions about how is it that we’re to handle this feeling, this burden, this weight, if you will, of affliction that leads often to despair. What do we do when those moments come where we feel like we are despairing because of a situation that we find ourselves in?
One of the first things I want you to recognize as we think through this process—and maybe you’re dealing with a person who’s struggling with this and you’re trying to encourage them in counsel, or maybe you yourself are walking through this moment of despair. I want us to just consult the Scriptures and understand how we deal with this. Because I think it’s important that we establish first sort of the biblical outlook, the framework, by how we understand these types of scenarios, situations, afflictions. Are they real? Am I not a Christian if I feel these things, right?
I want us to take a step back and understand when afflictions like this occur, and we have responses, internal responses that feel like we are despairing of even life itself, as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 1. What do we do? How do we handle this? So, let’s just think through the passage a little bit first and hopefully this will be helpful to you as you can brainstorm about not just homework, but I want you to think conceptually and practically about these types of issues.
Because many today are talking about different types of affliction and different forms of despair that we walk through: problems, difficulties, calamities that we walk through. Today we call them traumatic events that we walk through. And we don’t want to dismiss people’s experiences. Those things are actually real. The way people respond to these things are actually real. What we have to do is learn to assess these responses as either being something that’s sinful or a part of the suffering in the world in which we live. And those experiences are normative experiences that we have. As Jesus would say, in this world you will have trouble, right? So even as Christians, we can expect that trouble will happen.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 not to lose heart. Why does he say something like that? Well, because you’re probably going to have lots of opportunity where you want to lose heart. In the moment, it feels like that circumstance is so convincing that I’m at the mercy of whatever’s about to happen to me, that I feel like I need to lose heart. You lose hope. And this is the concept that Paul is trying to get out here.
Now, remember, when he’s dealing with this concept in 2 Corinthians 1, I’m trying to provide for you conceptually how do we deal with these types of afflictions? How do we deal with these types of pressures or burdens that we feel in our inner man when we experience affliction from the outside? And if you remember, Paul sets this up in the beginning of the chapter where he’s trying to point our hearts to the God of all comfort.
And so, that concept precedes any reality that we might experience. There’s a greater reality that God is a God of complete comfort. And God, because He is a Father of mercies, if you look in verse 3, that He is going to comfort us because He has demonstrated already His fully mercy in Christ. And so, what He does is He’s able to comfort us in any affliction that we have.
Now, He tells us a purpose. What often happens when people are despairing is you’ll see this sort of draw in their heart, as if this affliction is meaningless. And if they can’t feel better, then the affliction itself becomes something that’s a meaningless pursuit. And they find themselves going deeper and deeper and deeper, further downward in the spiral of despair.
What has to be established is when we experience deep affliction—and the Scripture is no stranger to saying it’s common to us, when we experience that the greatest reality by which to see an affliction is that God is a God of all comfort. And that He will be purposeful in how He uses any type of affliction for our comfort.
Now, it doesn’t happen in a snapshot. It doesn’t happen rarely as quickly as we would want. But this is a part of a process of what God is doing. And it is for our own comfort, genuinely, so that we understand the depths of the beauty of the mercies of Christ toward us. But it’s also for the purpose that we would comfort others in their affliction.
And so, the Lord, by His grace, is helping us to experientially, not just intellectually, know the mercies of God and the comfort of God, but now experientially through affliction. Now, notice the difference.
What often happens is we are lured and enticed and deceived in those moments of affliction to thinking that there’s not meaning, purpose, and value behind those things, that God is separated or distanced from us. And this is not uncommon to man. You hear this kind of question in the psalmist regularly, where he’s asking, where is God in these moments? It feels like God is so far off. God, are you even near? You can hear that in his prayers. And we’re tempted often to feel as if that’s true.
But we have to realize what the Scripture says by faith, is that God is a God that’s full of mercies. He’s proven that in Himself by giving the Lord Jesus Christ to us and that he will comfort us in our affliction. And he tells us that we share abundantly in these sufferings of Christ. Why? So that we can share also abundantly in the comfort that Christ has to give to us that we can offer to other people.
So, this is established as sort of like the beginning concept, if you will, the lens by which we start to see afflictions. Again, notice what I’ve not done. Lots of people say biblical counselors just want to dismiss that trauma or affliction really doesn’t happen. Well, that’s not what biblical counselors are saying. We acknowledge that we experience these types of events in our life all the time, but there’s a backdrop by which we see and understand that these are things rooted in meaning, purpose, and value that God would give. Now, does intellectually knowing that keep us from falling into despair?
Well, listen to what Paul describes. He’s talking about some affliction that they’ve endured as they were in Asia. Some people speculate that this is a time when Paul was being persecuted in Ephesus, where he’s confronting the idol makers in Ephesus, and they come at him and beat him, leave him for dead, and he’s wanting to go back and share again. They run him out of town, and maybe it’s this time.
Writers don’t know exactly, but we do hear when Paul is enduring this affliction. Notice, I mean, we’re talking about the Apostle Paul. We’re talking about a man who’s very well-saved, right? And he’s impacted by this thing that’s happened to him outwardly. Listen to the way that it’s described, 2 Corinthians 1:8, “for we do not want you to be ignorant brothers of the affliction that we experienced in Asia.”
He’s saying we can be transparent about this. We can be open and honest because Paul knows this is not just about him. It’s about his comfort from God, and he’s going to share this for the sake of the comfort of others. And he describes it like this, “for we were so utterly burdened,” weighted down is sort of the concept “beyond our strength.”
I think this is an important concept because right now we see so many people describing traumatic events that are happening to others, and people feel powerless. And I would say, okay, that’s true based on what the Scripture describes.
What we have to be cautious of is that it doesn’t make us powerless in our responses—which we’ll see in just a second, and I think later in 2 Corinthians 4, he makes that very clear as well. We start to get deceived when we think something happens to us. We feel utterly powerless. We feel at the end of ourselves, and that statement is true, but as if then we’re not responsible for how we respond. And that’s not true according to what Paul is about to say. And so, we can experience a weight, a burden, if you will, in life. And this is the picture that Paul is describing here.
We feel this weight and burden, and the sense of it is, yes, an affliction from the outside, but the weight and burden—that he’s describing it as he does here in terms of despair—seems to be such an internal response that he’s having, right? That we’re beyond our strength. Meaning that I’m embracing in fullness my weakness. And I’m seeing that whatever is required of me in this moment, I don’t have the strength to deal with it.
What is he saying here? He’s recognizing that as one who is in this body of death and as we experience affliction, a human tendency—in part because of our finiteness—is that we see the end of our strength, and we tend to despair. We tend to find ourselves, as this word would seem, an emphasizing of utter and complete despair. This place where he seemed at a complete loss, right?
If he’s taking account, he’s saying, whatever we invested in his own heart—you can imagine how his mind is spinning at this moment. You’ve felt this. Your counselees have felt this. His mind is spinning. Like, “this seems like everything that I invested, it’s a complete and utter loss.”
It seems like if he’s looking for ways out, and Paul was ninja-like, right? He could figure out different ways to get out of trouble, right? Whether that be just standing and facing persecution or being able to escape persecution.
What we see here is this concept of utter despair. Man, it seems like everything’s closing in, and it seems like there’s no way out. Again, we don’t know what happened specifically. But this was something that was outward that led to a deep, deep, inward distress. So much so that he describes it as despairing. Despairing how? Despairing of life itself.
I mean, that’s pretty intense. Where we start to question the meaning, the value of life, the purpose for which we’re living. We lose sight of the mercies of God. They seem to be veiled to our heart, right? We feel numb, even, to the things that are happening in life. This is the perspective that Paul is transparently sharing here, and he’s not saying this is foreign to us, right? What he’s saying is that this is the pathway in which he experienced this deep comfort of God, and that’s altogether different.
In 2 Corinthians 1:9, he says, “Indeed, we felt that we had received this sentence of death.” He’s considering, ‘man, this thing… I’m as good as dead.’ Have you ever been there when we feel death’s shadows? We feel experiences of the shadows of death. Maybe it was you received some sort of diagnosis of cancer. Maybe you’ve been in a long bout of a chronic illness. Maybe you were traumatized by some event that threatened your life or that was of deep and unbelievable shame that happened to you.
This is the part where Paul is describing what it felt like—that it felt like death was maybe a better option. These are what the Bible refers to consistently as shadows of death. They are shifting, they are constant, they’re reminders of what’s to come, but they don’t give us our identity.
This is a part where Paul then makes a transition. Instead, I want you to see the difference between where Paul transitioned and how we should continue to think appropriately and biblically here. Because at this point, we will set our hope on something to deliver us from death. At this point, we will set our affections towards something to ask for help. Why? Because we fully admit that we’re at the end of our strength. We know that we are full of weakness. We’re not afraid to embrace that. We’re going to set our hope and affection on something.
Now, if you were to consider some of the ways, even right now, that we see people pursuing different ways of hope. There are all kinds of things like: breathing techniques, holding ice cubes, EMDR and practices like that, even forms of CBT or dialectical behavioral therapy, where we try to mix different ways of addressing certain problems of trauma responses and so on.
Different issues related to the body that are presumed based on neuroscience that has not been proven relative to the body keeping the score and so on. There are different alternate ways that we begin to pursue hope. Maybe that’s some form of self-empowerment that we think is necessary to pursue in order to have hope in some way. Maybe we think that we have to prepare our heart in some way to enjoy the comfort of God by some other means.
Paul doesn’t say that. Here, he’s talking about one of the lowest places that we as human beings can get because of some affliction that’s happened to him. At this point here, you think of the miracles that Paul saw and was a part of. You think of the works of God that Paul saw. Yet here, in this affliction, he’s feeling in the pit of despair. He’s experiencing full well. with eyes wide open. He is without strength. He is in complete weakness. Then look at where he turns.
One of my great concerns that’s happening right now is we have a tendency to dismiss the reality that whatever methodologies we impart or implement in the counseling room, they are offering a form of hope to people. When we prefer to point them in a direction, that really becomes self-empowerment in some way. That comes from what many people would describe as common grace insights. We’re going to implement those things.
In some way, we’re saying that preparation has to happen before I can genuinely experience the comfort of God. But that’s not what Paul says here. Look at what he says is the purpose for which this whole thing is happening. Notice, he doesn’t say, ‘man, we should have never despaired.’ No. He’s acknowledging in full that that despair was a response to the affliction that they had and that he was embracing reality, which was he was full of weakness. But then he says, what was the purpose of that, Paul?
To make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. You see, I think we live with a facade a lot. You, me, all of us do to some degree. Our afflictions really begin to remove the veil. We walk around as if we have some level of strength, some ability, but we don’t often embrace our weakness. In fact, we like to cover those up. We like to act and pretend as though they don’t exist. We try to avoid those really at all costs.
But sooner or later, because of the shadows of death, we feel that affliction, that level of affliction that really removes the veil. We see ourselves face to face with difficulty, trial, calamity, affliction to such a degree that we have to deal with reality, that we’re a finite being and we’re limited in strength and ability.
What’s the purpose of those things? That’s a part of the kindness of God that we would be able to see that we not rely on ourselves. Why? Because the assumption here is, when we rely on ourselves, that’s really no hope at all. What does it lead to? Further and further and further despair down the pit of despair.
But what he’s describing here is, we’re called to rely on God. That’s what we were made for. Notice this is a huge distinction. 2 Corinthians 1:10, He delivered us from such a deadly peril. And He will deliver us. And it’s on Him that we set our hope, that He will deliver us again. How does He deliver us? In many ways. Sometimes immediately in the trial, sometimes after a long period where we can see this inner burden and weight that’s been lifted because our eyes can now see the hope that truly is in Christ, the mercies of Christ.
So, what should we be pointing to consistently? We should be pointing to consistently the mercies of God. The goodness of God. The ways in which God comforts despite the affliction. The way in which God has met every need that we have, even when our strength is emptied fully and the veil has been removed for us to see ourselves for who we really are.
I want you to think about this in several ways. It’s not the fact that we don’t have cares and afflictions. What’s most important—and I think Paul is helping us to see, as we see in other places of Scripture—is what do we do with those cares and afflictions when we have them? Where do we take them? Do we internalize them and put more pressure on ourselves to respond appropriately so that we have meaning, purpose, and value in life?
What you’re going to find at the end of that is more and more despair. You’re going to find more and more difficulty at the end of that, because those things were never intended to be something weighty enough to bear the burden of the despairs of life. When the shadows of death hit, the only thing that we can lean into and run to is not to dismiss that those cares aren’t there, but remember what Peter said in 1 Peter 5:7, “cast all your anxieties or cares on the Lord.” Why? “Because He cares for you.”
It’s the same logic that Paul is describing here: Because the God of mercies has demonstrated and proven Himself to us, and cast our cares in a particular way. It’s not the point that we don’t have cares.
As Christians, stop dismissing as if we don’t experience difficulty and trial to where we feel deep internal weight and suffering and despair. What do we do with those cares? How do we deal with those cares? How are you teaching your counselees to deal with those despairs? Not dismissing them, acting as if they have little faith if they’re struggling with this issue.
I would argue here, Paul does not have little faith, but in that moment, he’s been deeply affected by something that’s happened to him. It’s not to reverse course, look for some sort of neurological insight that’s going to help us in some way. What Paul says is something that’s powerful to overcome any of those descriptions or explanations of life. You think of Paul again in Philippians 4, he’s not saying that we don’t have anxieties, but where do we take them?
Peter, he’s not saying we don’t have cares, but where do we take them? Paul again in Romans 5, He’s not saying we don’t have afflictions, we’re not perplexed, we’re not crushed in every way, we’re not persecuted. He’s saying all those things are real, but they don’t determine our identity and create who we are. What he says is it leads to a perseverance that leads to hope in a hope that will not put us to shame, and that’s to make ourselves reliant upon the mercies of God.
When we think about Jesus, even in Matthew chapter 6, it’s very clear he’s not saying we don’t have anxieties or opportunities for anxiety. In fact, the teaching of Scripture makes clear that in this world we’re going to have lots of opportunity for these types of feelings to happen, these types of weights and burdens to happen to us.
2 Corinthians 4, same thing. Paul is acknowledging these things are deep burdens, but compared to the eternal weight of glory, they’re radically light now. It matters what you compare this burden to.
As biblical counselors, we don’t have to remove the fact that these are weighty issues, but we do have to start asking the question: Where do we take these burdens and pressures when we have them? What Paul is saying here, to enjoy the comfort of God. To enjoy the deliverance of God. We have to take these cares in one direction, and that’s to God Himself.
What will we see then as benefits? What we see with those who take their afflictions and take their burdens in the right direction, casting these things on God, who is the God of all mercies and the God of all comfort. Paul here describes it, there’s meaning in the suffering. There’s meaning, because it was intended to force us not to rely on other things or ourselves, because we weren’t made for that. We were made for something else.
The second thing, I think, is it protects our heart. It protects us from being persuaded by other ideas and looking for hope in other directions, like some of the methodologies that we’re hearing float around today. It also allows a genuine way of escape from the affliction itself—a way to deal with it appropriately, not dismissive. But we find that God raises beauty from the ashes that are created by affliction, where He mends the brokenhearted genuinely.
Another benefit, I think, is where genuine comfort is found. Our counselees need genuine comfort. They don’t need superficial explanations that dismiss the trauma that they’ve experienced or even try to self-empower so that they can overcome a feeling of trauma and despair or the responses that they have.
They need to experience genuine comfort, and the only place that comes is from God, not some sort of humanistic theory that’s intended to relieve pressure in some way or be some sort of preparation to now experience the comfort of God. What’s preparation is that God has demonstrated His mercy in Christ, and that is where we find comfort.
The final thing that I think is really important, and this may be the most uncomfortable, is that we have to be placed at the mercy of something when we’re afflicted. When we’re afflicted, we experience deep problems in life. We feel so vulnerable that we’re choosing to place ourselves at the mercy of something, a theory, a method, a concept, a pursuit, but we have to say: Is it sturdy enough to place our hope in? Can we genuinely place ourselves at the mercy of this technique or this particular action or this way of thinking?
You see, the intention that Paul is getting at here is that this whole affliction is intended to place us at the mercy of God. To be quite honest with you, we’re very uncomfortable with that. What do we do? We have a tendency to grope about trying to find other methodologies that at least soften or provide some superficial comfort.
I think we need to learn to be comfortable with being placed at the mercy of God. If that means patience, that we patiently wait, not to dismiss the value of prayer and supplication. Not to dismiss the value of being at the end of ourselves, the end of our strength, and embracing weakness so that we can genuinely see the depth of the beauty of the mercies of God and being okay being placed at His mercy.
If you’re working with counselees, start to think through their despair in this way, where you don’t have to dismiss it. But taking elements of the burden that they experience and helping them to see what God is trying to help them to see, which is He’s trying to remove the things that they’ve been relying on in their own heart and life for identity, reputation, or they’ve just been living under a veil, trusting in their own strength.
Then we can see that as we place them at the mercy of God, that that’s a helpful thing. That they can learn to be comforted by the mercy of God over time. Learning to take their thoughts captive. Learning to weigh their experience in light of eternity, as Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 4, so that they can find a way out of the pit of despair. Because otherwise they just continue to dig a hole deeper and deeper and deeper.
These are some thoughts that I think would be helpful to you as we consider the reality of despair and how it is that we handle biblically this concept of despair. And so to take these ideas to be practical, to work through the genuineness of what a person is experiencing, being unafraid of those things, but also seeing the value of what God has provided for us in terms of comfort. And that we learn to embrace that comfort and not other comforts that we may chase that will prove unhelpful and even distracting and unstable in the end. So, teach our counselees to pursue the mercies found in God.
