Escape the pit of despair with these 3 powerful elevators

When despair sticks your heart in the mud, the best way out is an express elevator.

The fastest elevator ride in my life was recently with my son, Jack, on the outside of the Comcast Center building in Philadelphia.

As soon as we stepped on, the door shut and we shot off the ground like a clown in a circus cannon.

  • People turned to ants
  • Buildings turned to legos
  • Streetlights to toothpicks

The sky shot reminds me of three express elevators beckoning all of us out of the pit of despair.

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Escape the pit of despair with these 3 powerful elevators

What Bono Wants You to Know About Hope

No one sings feelings like Bono.

Did you know his favorite book of the Bible is the Psalms?

The last song played at many U2 concerts is “40,” based on Psalm 40.

Bono performs "40"
U2/Christian Peterson/Getty Images

The song was created in ten minutes after an all-night recording session for their third album, “War.”

“40” offers a clue to one of the biggest mysteries about God.

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What Bono Wants You to Know About Hope

How to Hope in the Middle of any Crisis

Did you ever think hope could vanish as fast as sporting events did in the Coronavirus crisis?

That’s why TV channels played the Lord of the Rings over and over.

Frodo Baggins and his companions live day and night in loss, pain and darkness.

The wear and tear of goblin gnashing and countless deaths lead to Frodo’s merciful escape from the Grey Havens to a sort of heaven.

God filled hope

Tolkien enthusiasts adopted the catch-phrase “Frodo Lives!” to express hope in dark times.

For anyone in despair, three reminders can light up a dismal season.

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How to Hope in the Middle of any Crisis

When Despair Overwhelms Your Heart with Darkness

I could see the despair dripping with the bloody gash across his forehead as he sat wearily across from me in the sheriff’s office.

Less than 12 hours earlier, Trey drove a ski boat with his girlfriend high speed into my dock just before midnight.

Despair leads to tragedy
Dock as I found it the morning after late night crash.

They were lucky to be alive.

shipwrecked despair
Chaise loungers thrown from point of impact

The sheriff arrived searching for dead bodies.

And then his phone rang with news someone found the boat, so he ran off instructing me to stay there.

Hours later he called and asked me to come meet the survivors at his office.

I quickly googled the young man only to learn he had studied at Harvard and MIT.

He was a Fellow of the Trinity Forum Academy in Osprey Point, Maryland.

Only the brightest and most promising undergraduates are accepted each year for a nine month program to study “life’s greatest questions, in the context of faith.”

Why did such a promising young man drive his dad’s ski boat high speed into a completely out-of-the-way location on a lake he knew better than any school subject?

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When Despair Overwhelms Your Heart with Darkness