Hope Prevails

by Dr. Michelle Bengtson

  God does not call us to a life of perfection, although for years I believed the lie that he wouldn’t love me if I weren’t perfect. He accepts us as we are but loves us too much to leave us that way. So then life becomes about living in this destiny we have in him, and we can move past the fear of isolation, rejection, or not belonging and the motivations of guilt and shame that go with those. My routine that morning wasn’t perfect but I was able to recognize the ensuing feelings of defeat and shame for what they were and not agree with them. God doesn’t expect perfection; our destiny is secure in him, not in what we do or how well we do it.

  Even the biblical greats like Paul weren’t perfect. He wrote, “I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back” (Phil. 3:12–14 Message).

  When you are tempted to give up because you’ve tried and fallen short of the goal or the expectations, take a moment to take a deep breath. Assess the situation, course correct your thoughts and attitude about the situation, and try again. Remember, it’s not about perfection; it’s about relationship. Neither the enemy of your soul nor your depression can dictate your destiny. Your destiny is secure in Christ.

  Your Rx

  Are you sure of your eternal destiny? If you’ve never accepted Christ as your personal Savior but want to, you can right now by praying a prayer such as this: “Dear God, I recognize that I have sinned. I believe that you sent your Son to die to pay the price for my sins. I choose to turn away from my sinful ways and receive you as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you for taking up residence in my heart, saving me, and securing my destiny with you forever. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.”

  Look up the following verses: Psalm 34:18; John 6:40; 10:29; Romans 5:1–2; 2 Corinthians 4:8–9, 16–18. Write them on index cards and place them where you will see them frequently. Read each of these passages aloud three times daily, committing them to memory.

  What lies have you believed about your current situation? Your future? Your eternal destiny? If you are unsure what lies you have believed, pray and ask God to show you. Then ask for his forgiveness for believing such lies, and ask him to show you his truth.

  My Prayer for You

  Father, I thank you for your mercy and grace. I thank you that the moment we come to know you as Lord and Savior our destiny is secure with you. Father, you know the enemy would have us believe that when we mess up, lose our way, or even vulnerably share with you how we are feeling, we risk losing your love and acceptance. I pray now for the heart of this dear one whom the enemy seeks to attack. I thank you that your Word says you make firm the steps of those who delight in you, and although we might stumble and trip, you don’t let us fall because you are always there upholding us with your hand. I pray that you will reveal your steadying hand to this one who seeks to hear and believe your truth above all else, and I ask that you will bring peace and hope to the dark places. Because of your mercy and grace, amen.

  Recommended Playlist

  “Forever Yours,” Gateway Worship, © 2012 by Gateway Create Publishing

  “Strong Enough to Save,” Tenth Avenue North, © 2010 by Reunion Records

  “Where I Belong,” Building 429, © 2011 by Essential Records

  “Still Calls Me Son,” John Waller, © 2007 by Reunion Records

  “Because God Is Good,” John Waller, © 2011 by City of Peace Media Inc.

  “I Belong to You,” Jesus Culture, © 2014 by Jesus Culture Music

  “139,” Gateway Worship, © 2012 by Gateway Create Publishing

  “Love Not Done with You,” Jason Gray, © 2014 by Centricity Music

  “Who I Am,” Blanca, © 2015 by Word Entertainment LLC

  “How Can It Be,” Lauren Daigle, © 2015 by Centricity Music

  10

  Be Confident That Nothing Separates You from God’s Love

  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

  Ephesians 3:18 NLT

  Whether you accept it or reject it, God’s love for you is permanent.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Have you ever felt alone? Unloved? Do you ever fear that people might not love you if they knew the “real” you—with all your faults, quirks, insecurities, and mistakes?

  The enemy thrives off convincing us that God forgets or abandons us during those times when we feel alone. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. God’s Word assures us he won’t leave us. In depression’s darkness, however, it’s a natural tendency to turn our focus inward to our own thoughts and feelings, focusing less on others and God. Then our defenses weaken and we become more susceptible to the enemy’s cunning whispers.

  We Can Go It Alone or We Can Go with God

  As I neared the end of a particularly difficult and painful season in my life, following my husband’s struggle with cancer, my mother’s death from cancer, and the miscarriage of our baby, my brother asked me a hard question. “So, through all of this, what did you learn?”

  It took me a surprisingly long time to find an answer. While I never vocalized it, I berated myself internally for not having an immediate response—it seemed I should.

  I reflected on his question during my prayer time. As I prayed, images appeared as if scenes were playing on a movie screen. First, I pictured a young girl riding piggyback on her father’s back as they walked through the sun-dappled woods. Smiles and laughter enhanced the sunshine of the day. Then the girl climbed down off her father’s back and ran ahead on the trail, not looking back.

  Grief overtook me. I knew deep in that part of my being where only God could see that I had glimpsed a picture of him and me. It was clear he knew the real me—the me I avoided seeing, the me I avoided disclosing to anyone else. The grief that knotted my stomach came with the revelation that answered my brother’s question: through all the hard times, God never moved. I did. He never left me, but at times I veered away from him. I felt loneliness because I ran on ahead without looking back, determined to take care of myself.

  I related personally to Isaiah 30:20–21: “Though he give you the bread of adversity and water of affliction, yet he will be with you to teach you—with your own eyes you will see your Teacher. And if you leave God’s paths and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, ‘No, this is the way; walk here’” (TLB).

  The image disturbed me. In my prayer time, I explored the scene with the Lord. Gentle and loving, he directed me to the answers my heart needed to learn. All my life I had been a type A person. When times got tough, I jumped in and did more. During hard personal trials like my husband’s cancer, I took up the slack and did even more. It was necessary and helpful, for a period. But honestly, it served as a defense against the pain. In my busyness, my awareness of the hurt within me lessened. There wasn’t time to let myself feel the pain, so I numbed it by staying too busy to acknowledge its existence.

  By staying busy, I also tried to shield myself from future hurt. I tried to run ahead, predict what would happen, and anticipate the future so I could plan how to handle it or even prevent it. The pain of those events was so great that in my way of thinking I never wanted to be caught off guard by such great pain again. I began to anticipate it and plan for it, and in doing so, I sacrificed the moments of joy God offered me because I was too busy to recognize them when they were there.

  Most troubling in the image I had of getting down from my Father’s back and running ahead was that I never turned back. I realized I never turned back because just as I had lost my earthly father to death at a young age, my mother to death from cancer, and our baby to miscarriage, I feared, if I looked back, God wouldn’t be there anymore either. Rather than risk that, I chose not to look. The enemy
successfully held me in bondage to the lie that just as others had left me, so too would God.

  I’m so thankful for the truth in Isaiah 30:21. In his mercy and love, God whispered to me to bring me back to his path. He remained faithful to his Word: “Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him” (Isa. 30:18). Even when I ran ahead, he was there, and he still loved me. “The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Ps. 145:9). Just as he stayed faithful to his promises to me never to leave me or stop loving me, he will stay faithful to you too. But as I did, you have the choice whether or not to acknowledge him and walk through this journey with him.

  When times get hard and answers don’t come quickly, our enemy is quick to take advantage of our natural tendency to long for the good old days when life seemed easier, or our circumstances seemed better, or at the very least we had some answers. When those answers aren’t forthcoming or the tides don’t turn fast enough, the enemy whispers seeds of doubt:

  “If God really loved you, you wouldn’t still be hurting.”

  “Do you think God can love someone as messed up as you?”

  “The Bible says that ‘God so loves the world,’ but surely that means the world in general, because if he really loved you, he would have answered your prayers by now.”

  Remember, the enemy is the ultimate liar. He can say whatever he wants, but everything he says is a lie. The truth is that God’s Word repeatedly says that nothing, not even depression, can separate us from God’s love. The problem occurs when we believe our feelings or the enemy’s lies instead of God’s truth.

  God Is Always with Us

  In her book Why I Jumped, Tina Zahn shares her desperate battle with depression, which culminated in her attempt to jump off a bridge two hundred feet above the Fox River. God and a state trooper intercepted her suicide attempt at the precise moment she jumped. The state trooper lunged for Tina and affirmed, “I’m not letting you go.” He resolutely hung on until two other officers arrived to pull them both to safety. Tina wrote, “In the same way that the state trooper said, ‘I’m not letting you go,’ so God also has us in his grip and will never let go of us. Joshua 1:5 says, ‘As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”1

  Darkness was all I could see. I had just flown back from a professional conference and was more than ready to be home. As I walked through baggage claim, my eyes met my husband’s as he waited to whisk me home, excited to hear about my trip. My answers to his greeting questions were clipped. After my suitcase was securely loaded in the trunk and my seat belt was fastened, tears cascaded down my face, leaving him speechless. Icily I stared out the window while inside I burned with despair and hatred of the enemy, who had introduced depression into my lineage.

  “You can’t take me home—I don’t want the boys to see me like this.”

  My husband never could have imagined hearing what he did the next two hours. He sat, mostly silent in prayer, while I wept for two hours in our minivan in a grocery store parking lot. His heart dropped and his face drained of all color as he heard the unthinkable. I couldn’t believe it myself.

  “I understand why people commit suicide,” I whispered, not recognizing my own voice.

  He stammered as he spoke. “Are you thinking of committing suicide?”

  I knew I was in a war, a spiritual battle, and while I didn’t feel I was winning, I wasn’t ready to give in. The enemy had already stolen enough from me, and I determined not to let him steal from my children. Resolute not to vocalize my thoughts and give the enemy another open door, I declared with all the strength I could gather, “I’m not going to put that out there. The enemy would love nothing more.”

  My poor husband didn’t know where to go from there. “Do I need to take you to a hospital?” The air between us was weighty, like the thick humidity after a Florida afternoon rainstorm, as he continued. “Honey, I don’t know what to do or say right now.”

  “I don’t either.” I honestly didn’t.

  “Promise me you won’t do anything to harm yourself. Promise me you’ll hang on.”

  I couldn’t promise anything. Darkness enveloped me like a wet blanket—uncomforting and unwelcome. I sat frightened. I had never thought such devastating thoughts before, nor did I know where they came from. I was afraid to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with people.

  The situation was surreal. How did I get here? How did this happen? More importantly, how would I survive?

  I wept for days afterward, longing for the darkness to lift, the pain to cease, and the joy to come in the morning. For most people, myself included, considering suicide isn’t about wanting to die; it’s about wanting the pain to end.

  I continued to read God’s Word. I could relate to the words of the prophet Micah: “But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD. I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me” (7:7). I cried to the Lord through my tears. I prayed as earnestly as I knew how, “Lord, I don’t know if I can hold on. This pain is too much. Please hold my hand and don’t let go.”

  In my brokenness, in my weakness, he met me. His promise leapt off the page into my heart: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isa. 41:10). I needed to remember the truth that despite my weakened state, God would hold me up. When I could not trust my own strength, I had no choice but to depend on his.

  Only then did Psalm 23 transition from head knowledge to a heartfelt truth. I relied on God’s promised companionship during my dark journey: “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me” (Ps. 23:4 NLT).

  A few days later in my morning devotional time, I wept before the Lord. As I confessed that I felt like I was in a war for my very life, he strengthened my will to fight by leading me to Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Other verses I had memorized as a child jumped to the forefront of my mind. “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Scripture passages I had forgotten sprang to consciousness and met my need. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:15).

  In my despair, I needed to know I was not alone. At my very core, I felt unlovable and didn’t even like myself, much less love myself. I needed to know I was loved regardless of how I felt.

  God’s Love Doesn’t Depend on Us

  Since my early childhood years, I had always been the doer, the achiever. I had set my sights high. I took Colossians 3:23–24 (“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving”) to the extreme. I didn’t allow any room for imperfection.

  In my formative years, after a traumatic experience, I unwittingly allowed the enemy to kill my peace when I believed his lies, “You can’t rely on others to be there for you” and “You have to be perfect or God won’t love you.” From then on, I worked as hard as I could to be perfect. Failure was never an option. When times got tough, I got tougher. I coped by jumping in with both feet and doing whatever it took to handle the demands, as perfectly as possible.

  It took some very painful life circumstances to bring me to the realization that my coping style was not only unhealthy but also potentially deadly—and not in line with God’s truth. A few years ago, pregnant with our second baby, I endured the first of several crises that God ultimately used to bring me back to a right way of thinking. As the doctor was telling me that I was miscarrying our baby and that I needed a higher-level
ultrasound to confirm it, I called the hospital where I worked to check my schedule, to fit the ultrasound around my own patients scheduled to see me.

  What was wrong with this picture? I remained in my achiever mode, not wanting to let others down, rather than making my own health and that of my unborn baby first priority.

  There comes a point when doing, achieving, and performing is no longer productive and is completely contrary to our heart’s desire for peace.

  I wish I could tell you that I learned that lesson the day I miscarried our baby. But I didn’t. I was too stubborn. I was too busy picking up the pieces of our shattered life and trying to make a mosaic out of it to learn one of the most valuable lessons.

  That lesson came when I pushed my body to such extremes that it cried for mercy and finally shut down. For almost five months, I could no longer do. I couldn’t achieve. I couldn’t perform, no matter how badly I wanted to. I couldn’t even hold down food and required IV fluid and nutrition to keep me out of the hospital. My body said, “No more.”

  I’ve never before nor since felt so weak or so helpless. It was such a foreign experience for this go-getter, can-do woman. I had endless hours to think, pray, reflect, read. It brought me to the very place I had been running from.

  Over time, I had begun to equate my worth with my accomplishments. The more I depended on myself, the better I did, the more self-worth I had, or so I thought. Unconsciously I reasoned, the more I did, the better I did, the more God would love me, and by extension, answer my prayers.