Tag: despair

Hope that Overcomes Despair

Hope that Overcomes Despair

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Yacoub Magdy

Luke 5:27-39

The message of this gospel is hope. For any despair, any despondency, this is the answer.

Hope because of the restraint of Saint Matthew. Saint Matthew was restored to his original rank that was a Levite. We need to understand what a publican is and what a Levite is.

A Levite belongs to a group of people that the Lord chose to be consecrated in the temple. They lived in the temple, they don’t work and the temple covers all their needs. An entire extended family would be sustained in this way. Levites had an extremely high rank, like priests and deacons of the church.

Unfortunately, it is not made known how he became tempted to pursue riches. He applied for the role of publican of the Roman empire. A publican collects one tenth of the money the people earn and gives it to the Roman enemy. This one tenth should be given to the temple so that he, and the other Levites could live. He didn’t choose this path, but chose to work for the Romans.

Publicans get help from the Romans and are given police officers so that they may collect money from the people. Each district had to give the Romans a certain amount of money each year. Each publican was able to take as much money as they saw fit from the people, and they had police officers to protect them. You can imagine the hate the people had for the publicans, especially one that was originally a Levite.

It can be considered a priest in Egypt that loved money and devoted his efforts to collecting money from the Christians to the ruling authority (which in Egypt, would be Islam).

However, this man had something different in his heart. He did not feel it was his place to be a publican. At some point, he realised that he was not born to be a publican. There was still hope that he could return to the temple, that he could repent and be restored once more.

This day is a feast of hope, because we all have a similar outlook. Sometimes it isn’t money, but other worldly pursuits that interfere with our search for Christ.

Do I have hope? Can the Lord restore me?

The Lord was passing by Levi and all his riches surrounding him. No one can befriend a publican, he is not allowed to eat with people because he is considered defiled among the Jews. Only his colleagues that are publicans like him. He was boycotted from the temple. Great despair would have arisen within him.

The Lord said two words to Matthew, “Follow Me,” and he left all his money and in great joy, he knew he was restored.

This is our hope – that one word from the Lord can unite us back to our Beloved.

Following his restoration, Levi held a party and invited many people. The catering and cost would be extremely great. He could not invite the Jews, but he had to invite the sinners, publicans like him. How dare he make a feast of the Lord? The Lord entered into a house that was considered defiled. Maybe he heard of Zacchaeus, and how the Lord dined with him. The difference was that the Lord invited himself to Zacchaeus’ home. He may have heard this, and this gave him courage to invite the Lord.

Christ went to his house that day and dined with sinners and publicans. This angered the Jews and they saw this as betrayal. Jesus responded to them saying, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Like 5:32). He came to restore the sick to repentance. He is One of them. Today is the feast of hope. The church, in her wisdom, prepares for today before another great feast – the Transfiguration. How can I see the glory of God when I pursue the world? Jesus came to restore us to our original rank as His children. The desires of the Lord entrap us in sin and this is the day I say to the Lord, “tell me as you told Matthew. When you tell me to follow You, I will follow You all the days of my life.”

Despair (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 4/7

Despair

by Shery Abdelmalak

 The modern world is marked by advancements in technology, in social media, in education, in health – in all that we know. We have subsequently become increasingly self-sufficient. We know that we need God, but really, how often do you feel that you will not make it through the day without His immediate intervention? When you wake up in the morning – do you pray that God gets you out of bed? Do you pray and honestly believe that you will not achieve even the smallest of tasks without His help?

When you open the door to your room, you know you will find a bed, a wardrobe, all your things in their rightful spots. All your needs before your eyes. There are some places where this is not always guaranteed. Where you do not know what you will find when you open the door – if there even is a door. The certainly that we have in this life can often prevent us from seeking His help at every step. If you thought the floor you walk on could collapse at your next step then the dependence factor would increase profoundly.

Self-dependence, when applied to our spiritual lives, is a major source of despair. Youhanna El Daragy says: ‘The devils, before the fall say to you that God is kind and merciful, but after the fall they say that He is the Just Judge and they will frighten you to lose hope in the forgiveness of God and not repent’. Our self-dependence is what allows the devil to target despair to trap us deeper into sin and separate us further from Christ.

Despair can be defined as the complete loss or absence of hope. How this can apply to Christians in the New Testament is the real bemusement. Christ died for our sins, rose and ascended to the heavens. He conquered death through His death so that we could spend eternity with Him. Yet we despair because of sin? Your sins have been wiped away. But we prefer to wipe them away ourselves, that is way of self dependence.

Our self-sufficiency shadows the promises of faith as we try to overcome sin by our own efforts. Christianity in earlier years was a process of falling and getting back up again. You will fall but when you do, you will stand again. While we are not perfect, and will never attain perfection, we stand; we strive to imitate the One who is perfect. There was no over inflation of ego to hold someone down in the despair of sin. In modern times, falling is still guaranteed, but getting up again is dependent upon the despair that follows the sin.

The greatest source of despair is in repeated, habitual sins. That one sin that we cannot overcome no matter how hard we fight – the one that makes us realise we maybe we do need Him, not before the cycle of despair that is. We can call this a “tunnel vision” sin. Tunnel vision can be defined as, the tendency to focus exclusively on a sole object. If we think of horses at the races, racehorse trainers equip their horses with blinders to keep them focused on the finishing line and to prevent them from being distracted by the crowds and other surroundings. Now imagine a horse with misplaced blinders – blinders that cause the horse to look down to the ground instead of up to the finishing line. This horse is not going to go very far. It can only see two insignificant steps ahead of it. It is missing the entire race.

In a tunnel vision sin, we lose sight of all else, weaknesses and strengths alike. We need to stop looking down and start looking up. Look up to how God sees you – “I am dark but lovely” (Song of Songs 1:5)

HH Pope Shenouda III comments on this verse saying, “Iam dark is a uniquely peculiar and extraordinary phrase. It is uttered by the humble, unassuming, and contrite soul that is readily prepared to confess its sins and shortcomings.” Although tainted by sin, we were still created in His image and in His likeness. We have the potential to be vessels for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21).

A humble, unassuming and contrite soul is what we should strive for. A soul as such easily finds repentance. They are harsh on their own sins yet filled with mercy in their dealings with others. The beauty of the soul is in its ability to declare its deficiencies without any feelings of humiliation or degradation. The soul is what it is. We accept this with full focus on God, who He is and His work in us.

When we look at the three qualities HH Pope Shenouda III lists for the soul, we clearly see these as the requirements necessary to overcome despair and repent honestly and joyfully. Humble. Unassuming. Contrite. A soul as such is empty of itself and accepts their flaws. In this admission of weakness, Christ is given the ability to cleanse the soul of its weakness and fill it with all perfect strength.

Repentance is best when it is performed quickly and with no hesitation. This eliminates the stage of despair altogether. To overcome despair is to overcome one’s ego. Boast with Saint Paul of your infirmities. Trust like David that when He washes you, you will be whiter than snow. For in this, His strength will be made perfect in you, the joy of His salvation will be restored and His Spirit will uphold you.

What causes us to despair most is what God looks upon most favourably – a broken and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). God the Most High opposes the proud but exalts the humble (James 4:6). By grace we have been saved through faith, not by our own doing, but through the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). To look upon sin with despair is to deny the Holy Spirit of His work within us.

“The human soul cannot be victorious or successful in life unless it leans on her beloved, our Lord… Blessed and happy is the human soul that leans on her beloved, on the Lord and none but Him.”

– HH Pope Shenouda III

May we overcome despair through humility and dependence on the Saviour of our souls. Glory be to God forever, Amen.

Forgiving God (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 3/7

Forgiving God

by Shery Abdelmalak

Forgive God does not need to be said in theory. In practice, in a life full of tribulation and faith that is not yet fully formed, blame is misplaced. We would all love to say, like Job, “Naked I came from the womb and naked I shall return, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Job, you lost your children, your livelihood, blessed be who?

While we should be aiming to bless His Name through tribulation the way Job did, sometimes we can’t find the strength to even stand, let alone praise God. As Christians, we are gifted with the knowledge of faith. No matter what we go through, we are assured of His grace and that good will come out of the seemingly hopeless. Giving glory to God when things go right is easy, what becomes difficult is giving Him glory when things are not so good. What should be glory turns into blame, into resentment, into despair.

It is His fault that your plans did not go the way you wanted. It is His fault that He’s going to give you more than you could ever imagine, but for now, you can only see two steps ahead of you. If you knew what His plans were, if you knew the reason why you are in the tribulation you are in now, you would be on your knees in awe and amazement of the undeserving Love He has bestowed upon you.

While the end result is what we strive for, during the thick of tribulations, where can we draw faith from? This is when it gets difficult to stand and pray when the One that could get you out of tribulation at the click of His fingers, doesn’t. When you can’t see what He sees. When you are not capable of understanding of what He can do. When you think He has forgotten you. When you doubt that maybe you’re not His favourite anymore. Maybe He’s busy. Maybe He doesn’t love you anymore. As absurd as these all sound, these are the things that get in the way of repentance.

Job’s wife spoke as any one of us would when she told Job to forsake the God that had left him with nothing. As much as Job’s wife is ridiculed for what she said, we need to be sure we are not saying the exact same thing when troubles come our way. God didn’t fulfil our plans? On to plan B. There is an elevation of faith and of spiritual maturity when we put our desires aside for nothing more than to be united with our Lord. There is beauty in seeking Christ for who He is and not what He can offer. We remember Job, not his wife, who remains nameless. We remember Job as he was filled with faith and patiently endured tribulation. You have a choice; to chase a life like Job that is credited to him for faith or at best, be forgotten, like his wife.

What is pivotal to the story of Job is the moment he questioned God. To this, God responded to him in a whirlwind of anger and rebuked him for questioning that His love could ever fail. For the emotional outburst that was Job’s wife’s moment when she lacked faith, Job responded gently. The same way God gently responds to our lack of faith. We were never called to follow Him blindly. In peaceful silence, He waits for us to return to Him. He waits for us to stop focusing on ourselves and focus back on what truly matters – a life with Him.

If God does not respond to you in a whirlwind like He did to Job, know that your faith is not yet fully formed. How else can He show you His love? When you are going through tribulation, know that He is reaching out to you. This is not the time for you to let go. Cling to Him for surely He is the only One holding you together.

Job had lost everything, he was condemned as a sinner by his own friends and felt that the God whom he served had also forsaken him. For the moment that Job looked to himself instead of looking up to God, he fell into deep despair. He started to believe that God owed him something. If we are ever struggling to forgive God it is because we have fallen into the same trap – looking to ourselves instead of looking up to Him. There is purpose to your pain. If you can’t see it, look harder, look up to Him and He will reveal Himself to you. How can we ever question Him when we don’t even know how wisdom enters the mind, or who has given understanding to the heart? (Job 38:34).

Repentance is key to ensuring the virtues and lessons God has instilled in the tribulation you are in are fought and won. In true repentance, we stop looking to ourselves. We let go of the entrapment of our minds and look to Him. We look to His perfection and spread the love we are filled with to those around us. To think that some kind of reconciliation between you and God is necessary because He has wronged you makes no sense. You are not living a life to fulfil your own desires. You are living for Him. Focus on Him and His children and you will never be shaken by tribulation. Where were you when God made the heavens? Who are you to question His plans? A faith formed through trusting God when everything feels like it is going wrong is what makes questions like these fade away to nothing.

He is doing what is best for you, all that is left for you to do, is to thank Him, repent and make sure that no lesson is gone to waste. Let us pray for a faith that only grows and is not shaken by the tribulations of this world. Glory be to God forever, Amen.