You will not be overcome

What do you do when nothing make sense; when plans fall apart and all seems to be ruined? The temptation to despair is ever present in our lives. And most of the time, it is the easiest path to take. But for an outsider looking in, it is hard to figure out why those in despair could not just find happiness in things that they have, rather than worrying about things they want, until it hit home, when they themselves become desperate. Sinking fast into an abyss of negative thoughts, they too will soon realize that when expectations fall apart, senselessness becomes the only behavior that make sense. So is hope a bad thing? Is it better not to hope at all? But is it even possible to not to have hope?

Most of us mistakenly identify hope as an assumption that nothing bad would ever happen to us. Religious folks usually take it even one step further by assuming that God would never let anything bad occur in their life - no troubles, hardships, trials or tribulations. So when things go bad, it is only natural for humans to doubt - we doubt God, we doubt ourselves and our actions. We walk away from God everyday because of the excruciating experiences in our personal lives. We also hide from ourselves by refusing to shake off the after effects of painful circumstances and adjust to the new reality that we are presented with. We desperately try to glue the shattered expectations back together. We let the broken pieces to accumulate around us until we ourselves resemble cracked. 

I am not an outsider to shattered expectations, I have gathered plenty of those in my short life so far. Even then, I have trouble understanding why Christians would walk away from their God due to trials and tribulations. 

God, in and through Jesus, has become Emmanuel, God with us. it belongs to the center of our faith that God is a faithful God, a God who did not want us to ever be alone but who wanted to understand - to stand under - all that is human. The Good News of the Gospel, therefore, is not that God came to take our suffering away, but that God wanted to become part of it. (Fr. Henri Nouwen)

As Christians, we must understand and recognize our membership in humanity as an unavoidable part of our earthly existence. Humanity suffers from limitations, temptations and tribulations. God Himself didn't try to bypass any of these sufferings. In agony, Jesus Himself prayed that the cup would pass by Him. It didn't and He wholeheartedly accepted it. While making assumptions about a trial free tomorrow, aren't we making the mistake of assuming that the cup, which did not pass by the only begotten Son of God, would pass us by? 

Through Prophet Jeremiah, God tells us, "They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you" (1:19). He did not say that there would be no fight, sufferings, miseries or heartaches. Instead He said that He is with us and no one would be able to prevail over us - overcome us.

Let us thankfully commemorate the many mercies He has promised to us in the past, the many sins He has not remembered, the many dangers He has averted, the many prayers He has answered, the many mistakes He has corrected, the many warnings, the many lessons, the much light, the abounding comfort which He has from time to time given. He has made us for naught; He has brought us thus far, in order to bring us further, in order to bring us on to the end. He will never leave us nor forsake us. (Bl. Cardinal Newman)