In Despair?

Sometimes in reading Scripture, something catches your eye.

Here’s one that caught mine. Paul—the great Apostle Paul of the Bible—once felt in despair. He writes in 2 Corinthians 1:8 (ESV): “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” 

Despair. One definition is … to feel trapped without an exit. 

A person can live for weeks without food. They can live for days without water. They can live minutes without oxygen. But to despair … is to feel an overwhelming hopelessness of death.

It seems odd that we would find a Christian like the Apostle Paul speaking with such words. It is that same Paul who writes that, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

And his words seem to go against Jesus’ promise in John 10: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

One wonders. What had Paul experienced in Asia that caused him to despair of life itself?

I don’t know the precise answer to that question. But we can take a guess. 

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul gives us a list of some of the things he had endured. Many of them make my life seem like a picnic. Paul writes: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

We don’t know which of those things—or something else—caused Paul to write: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” 

But wait. There’s more. Paul doesn’t stop with that. He adds in the next verse, “But that was to make us not rely on ourselves” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

This past summer, we had the opportunity to take some of our young grandchildren swimming. When they are first learning to swim, they will only jump into the water IF they can jump into the arms of someone they trust. The water is still scary to them. But they’ve learned that they can be in the water with someone they know and trust.

So also in life.  And now, let’s allow Paul to finish telling us about his moment of despair, because there is more, and it is important: “We despaired of life itself… but that was to make us not rely on ourselves, but rather to rely upon God who raises the dead… on Him, we have set our hope that He will deliver us again” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).

If Elijah, King David and the Apostle Paul suffered moments of despair, guess what we might expect? We shouldn’t be too surprised when we have some really tough moments in life.

Yet each time you write out this new year of 2021, you are testifying to the history-changing event of a Savior who came to earth, lived the perfect life that we should have lived, and then died the death that we deserved to die. On top of that, Jesus accomplished something no one else in all of history has done. He was raised from the dead, having completed the payment for all our wrongs.

Yes, even the best of us may have moments of despair. But despair teaches us not to rely upon ourselves. Rather, they are times to jump into the arms of the God who raises the dead … into the arms of a Savior who loves us and forgives us and invites, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

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