November 24 - How to Find Hope in Times of Despair & Perplexity

Many saints have come to a place called ‘the dark night of the soul.’ It is a time of great testing, struggle, and doubt. Others refer to it as a Gethsemane experience, from Jesus’ agony experience in the garden before His crucifixion, where he asked his disciples to pray, but they fell asleep. It was at Gethsemane that Jesus agonized over his impending death. The dark night of the soul is a place where we feel abandoned. We wrestle with what is going on in our lives. So, when life isn’t working, things don’t make sense, or what is happening seems to conflict with what you believe about God, what then? One man decided to confront God, and God gave him some rather interesting answers. The man was struggling with the problem of injustice. Seven centuries before Christ's birth, a prophet by the name of Habakkuk was struggling with what was happening in his world. Evil prevailed. Sin was rampant. Violence was unchecked. The righteous were suffering at the hands of the wicked. As we look into the times that Habakkuk was speaking into, we find some incredible parallels to our own day.  When it seems that doing right does not matter, how can we find hope in those moments of despair?