Oh Wretched Man That I Am
Where hope and despair meet
The feeling of frustration is something that everyone experiences fairly often within the walk of life. Our jobs are never what they seem, our families rarely meet the Brady Bunch standards, our health might not be the best, or our dreams may never be fulfilled the way we thought that they would. These are frustrations that every human being deals with and they are a part of the journey of life. Nothing is ever what it seems, life is never perfect, and what we are usually left with is the frustrations that inevitably leads to despair.
There is common ground with every human being in the sense that we all are aware of the depravity of life around us. There is an inability that every human being carries to be able to do rightly on our own power alone. We all struggle with stuff. That recognition not only applies to those who have a Christian Theological definition of total depravity, but it is the basis for all religions as well. Everyone is trying to figure out what to do with the human condition of rebelliousness, harmful lusts, disappointments, rejection, fear, hate, bitterness, or in other words; sin.
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a Hindu. He was explaining to me that there are 4 distinctives to holy living that are a part of the Hindu religion: don’t drink alcohol, don’t gamble, don’t have elicit relationships, and don’t eat animal flesh. As I was listening I saw a sliver of an opportunity to share the Gospel with him, so I asked him, “How well do people of the Hindu faith keep these 4 tenants? I mean, we Christians have 10 Commandments and we keep them very poorly! So I’m sure 4 is a lot easier to keep right?” My friend replied very disgustedly, “Not at all, in fact most of the Hindu tenants are being replaced because no one ever keeps them.” So there you have it! No one can stay within the boundaries, no one can do rightly on their own, and it’s not just Christians. The whole world struggles with the frustration of this sobering truth.
I, myself spent a great deal of my life under the impression that I was responsible to cultivate and maintain my own righteousness which yielded me nothing but frustration and disappointment from the time I was about 9 years old until I was well into college. However, it was probably the most spiritually valuable chapter in my story because it helped me to understand the importance of how my inability to achieve righteousness on my own was very much a part of how God would later reveal his grace to my life.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. -Romans 7:19
When our depravity renders nothing but frustration with life we are left with a crossroads of the soul; despair or hope. Despair is easily achieved on our own. It is the place where the knowledge of our wretchedness is met with the understanding that there is nothing that we can do about it, and it is at this place where we respond with hopelessness. Despair is where humanity comes to a complete end in him/herself without the knowledge of God’s Grace. On the other hand is hope which is what is given to us through the knowledge of God’s grace. Hope is knowing that God is the healer of the hurt, the food of the hungry, and the clothes to the naked. Hope is the sanctification of our flesh and the purification of our unholiness. Hope is the prophetic response to our future glorification in Christ.
“Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.” -Blaise Pascal
The value of knowing Christ seems to require the meeting of both hope and despair. When we meet God we meet him utterly naked and exposed to our condition and yet He still offers us the dazzling gift of God’s love. It is where our despair and the hope in Christ meet that we realize there is nothing that we bring to the God’s table and yet an elaborate feast has been given at no expense to us, a ring has been placed on our hands that once worked towards evil, and an expensive robe has been placed on the shoulders that once carried the heaviness our shame.
Oh the invaluable preciousness of such a gift! No shame or guilt, no darkness or depth, no power and no kingdom can extend past God’s love. Such a revelation happens when we reach an end in ourselves and a need for God’s Grace is revealed within the great revelation of His love.
Only God’s gift is of value in the place of despair. A gift from a king to the impoverished is one of immeasurable worth. Therefore, let those who are at the place of despair find the love of Christ as their hope for future Glory. Let we who walk in the knowledge of our continual sanctification be reminded that we are always in need of a clearer and more spectacular vision of our hope in Christ. Where our frustration leads to despair and where God’s love answers with hope is where the chapters of our lives turn from wretched to royalty.
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” — Romans 7:24-25
