We have heard our parents say, “I don’t want you to have it as hard as my generation had it!” As good and gracious as those comments are, we must step back and realize the danger of having it too good, being too soft and too affluent. Even the writer John Steinbeck said, “If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much—make it greedy, miserable, and sick.” On an even higher level, C. H. Spurgeon said, “I am never afraid of my brethren who have many troubles, but I often tremble for those whose career is prosperous.”
What we find in Scripture are people living in the midst of danger and desperation. Reading the Psalms, you find it repeatedly and the Old Testament prophets most often lived in such times. Much of the Bible was written by people going through hard times speaking to people experiencing it too! The conclusion we reach before an open Bible is that very often during desperate times it was a time when God spoke more clearly and these times were moments of heaven’s wisdom revealed. The mystic Scot George MacDonald said:
“No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the psalms were born in a wilderness. Most of the epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through the fire … Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make preeminent use of a man, He puts him in the fire.”
We can then say that the Bible seems filled with days of desperation. Why? We discover, because when people are stripped of everything but God, then, of course, God is found to be everything! And that means, of course, that the Lord is given freedom to act in power and speak and renew.
Can we say, the unrecognized reason we do not see God at work today is that we are not desperate enough? When we come to “wits’ end,” we are near the opportunity for a display of God’s power; there is what Vance Havner once termed “holy desperation.”
At this moment I can imagine I hear the desperate cry of thousands of the people of Israel leaving Egypt as they look up and see across the vast desert sands the dust of thousands of Pharaoh’s chariots coming pell-mell toward them in full fury. Listen, if you will, for the cry of desperation that went up, “… They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.” (Exodus 14:10) The Red Sea before them and the sea of chariots coming toward them; yet, God delivered this desperate nation.
But for the more serious student of Scripture, dig and read of Jehoshaphat, Asa, Hezekiah, and the kings of the Old Testament coming to the prophet in times of terrible desperation. Yet, God used it. These people were without human hope and they did not know what to do, and so in such times of indescribable desperation they turned wholeheartedly to God. “Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble …” (Psalm 102:2)
Who of us wants to say, “That’s exactly what we need today”? Yes, here is what your mind recalls, God seldom uses a generation of people who pamper themselves with luxury surrounded with ease. We often find things; plenty of food and drink, furnishings and luxury; come as a guest, linger to become as a landlord, and stay as a prison warden. Jesus said that the well need no physician. Remember also the words of Revelation 3:17; let me quote it, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (NIV)
Oh the danger of living lives based on having more! In time, such lives are less free. In hard times, the lean years, we place emphasis on either what we should do or how we should be. That is the way God in His wisdom allows such hard times. A materialist mindset is arrived at as a result of totally ignoring the lesson of history and the warning of God. The words of A. W. Tozer seem harsh, but we need to hear them, “The possessive clinging to things … must be torn from our soul in violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple.”
At a distance from it, we admit that uninterrupted good times become a condition of danger, in the lives of so many; an otherwise good and generous person has been ensnared and then enslaved by it. The wisdom of J. C. Ryle is respected; he said once, “Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ,” and this we can learn again, few things in our lives should cause more trembling and fear than incredible and continuous prosperity. What great danger lies hidden in an abundance of things!
Go back to the Bible and see the hand of God in Nehemiah—a spirit of desperation motivated him. See it in Habakkuk and Jeremiah—in them we see it very clearly. Joseph and Daniel certainly lived and faced such bleak moments. And also, the persecution in the early church produced uprooting and desperation. But then, ask Paul and those on his team that traveled with him what happened in moments of terrible desperation. Very often, then God’s hand was most visible and His help most evident in difficult times.
So desperate days and times of trial are often sent by a God of love! These times are like an anvil and the hammer shapes us for better things. We think in such times—God is seeming to destroy us, when in actuality He is saving us. As a child I remember never crying out louder and resenting my parents more than when I was given my polio shot! Adversity is very often the clear expression of God’s paternal love expressed, we must see that the best sight is insight!
John Calvin, I believe, said it perfectly, “When visited with affliction (which produces desperation), it is of great importance that we should consider it as coming from God, and as expressly intended for our good.” The devotional writer Oswald Chambers comes with a timely word, which I consider tremendous, “God does not do what false Christianity makes out—keep a man immune from trouble.”
Another positive side of desperation is it creates a prayerful heart-cry to God. Such people come to “obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) Desperate individuals come “boldly unto the throne of grace,” meaning coming to God with no reservations knowing He is their only help and hope. This attitude intensifies a belief that He “… is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). Such people of God claim the promise “… as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” (Deuteronomy 33:25) God never withdraws that promise.
Spurgeon called this desperate praying “fervent persistence that will not be denied.” We are to come like the desperate and persistent widow who came to the unjust judge and yet would not be denied. (Luke 18:1-8) In her extreme case she pleaded on and on until the desire of her troubled heart was fully granted.
There is a question Jesus asked in one of His sermons; here it is, “shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?” Jesus then powerfully answered His own question about the prayers of the desperate, “I tell you that he will avenge them speedily …” (Luke 18:7-8)
Many times desperation leads to humiliation, which then leads to celebration! Groaning today, growing tomorrow, and glory to come.
Then let us stop and take a deep breath in order to receive the insight of C. S. Lewis. Hear him speak (you might read these words aloud): “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions, are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.”
It is faith that works its miracle in such days to solve the perplexity and sustain the person. Despair would be a common experience if faith did not come to our aid. Faith gives us the stamina to hold on and hold out and at last come out as one in triumph. Faithless people judge God and life in the context of the immediate circumstances, but faith takes the long view and the ultimate conquest.
“God often puts us in situations,” commented Erwin Lutzer, “that are too much for us so that we will learn that no situation is too much for Him!” And we can add, it is tribulation, tests, and trials that are intended to drive us into close dealing with the Lord. No saints of the faith were ever pampered into heaven.
Despair looks at life hopelessly, but triumphant faith rejects despair and looks at divine providence and promises. We must then, see the big picture. God uses people who are desperate to do things that are difficult and to teach us lessons which are eternal.
God sometimes takes trinkets from us that He might give treasures to us. We join Vance Havner, who talked about grace, groans, growth, and glory. It is God’s grace that takes us through times of great groans but then produces godly growth which leads us into God’s glory. Let us, then, endure today’s stinging afflictions that we may enter into eternity’s sparkling affection.
Let Paul’s confidence become ours, as we confess with him, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever.” (II Timothy 4:18, NIV)
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