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.

They were lucky to be alive.

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?

The short answer is despair.

Upon arriving at the sheriff’s office, I found Trey and his girlfriend sitting at a table with head wounds in a state of shock.

After a sincere apology and exchange of insurance information, I walked out bewildered over the depth of his despair.

So, weeks later I called Trey and invited him to lunch.

He accepted and we dined for almost two hours at the Park City Club with a beautiful view of the Dallas skyline.

It was a great space to take a break from the insanity of life and relax and talk.

I wanted to know what was happening in his life.  Why the gloom with such a promising future?

He shared a little about his sexual abuse as a kid at a summer camp.

He said he didn’t know if there was a God with all this pain.

I looked at Trey and I said, “One of the founders of Christianity was in so much pain that he despaired of life.  But he found a path to survive and even thrive.”

So, I quoted Trey the following passage written by the Apostle Paul.

“We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.  But, this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us.  On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.”   2 Corinthians 1: 8-10

Right after I quoted, “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death,” Trey looked at me and said, “I feel that way all the time.”

We sat there in silence.

After lunch, we stood up and hugged. 

I texted him over the following months trying to stay in touch.

But, I never heard from him again.

Four years after that lunch, I sat on my dock reading the digital edition of the Dallas Morning News (8/11/19) and saw his obituary.

I cried and pondered the pain and loss of such a promising life.

Whether it’s sexual abuse, chronic disease or other life altering changes, despair can choke the future if you let it.

Here’s three ways out.

#1  Be enchanted with God in a disenchanted world

Modern society’s chronic depression is due to the fact that many have slammed the door on God.

And when God is out of your world, it’s just you and the limits of your viewpoint.

University professors, journalists and Hollywood producers are today’s “reality police.”

• Anything appealed to beyond this natural world is labeled “unscientific” or “inoperative.” 
• There is nothing more to reality than matter. 
• There is no deep story and meaning that colors or governs the universe.

And so the minds of our youngest are welded into a steel trap of naturalistic pessimism.

Disenchantment is the prevailing mood when the only enjoyment and meaning in life is sex, alcohol, sugar, money or fame.

At the heart of this viewpoint is Darwinism which insists we come from caves.

But theism, sees mankind’s image from the heavens as shown by. . .

• the  propensity for order and justice
• the worldwide propensity for good over evil
• the unconquerable propensity to hope
• the universal propensity for morality and beauty

Beauty all around even amidst evil is God’s hint He is here to save us.

#2  Recognize the biggest fallacy of Darwinism

I believe evolutionary psychology has sold millions into the lie that we are creatures searching for nothing more than survival of the fittest.  That belief has sucked life out of untold millions turning them into zombies like The Walking Dead.

Just weeks ago, Yale University professor David Gelernter publicly rejected his belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution.

He pointed out the near impossibility of creating a functional stable protein out of nothing.

“Try to mutate your way from 150 links of gibberish to a working, useful protein and you are guaranteed to fail.”  David Gelertner (DG), Giving Up Darwin

Gelernter concludes that Darwinism. . .

1. explains adjustments within kinds of species
2. but does not explain the appearance of new species

“The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain.” DG

At the Hoover Institute this past June, Gelernter explained that his Darwinian colleagues are his friends, but. . .

“…when I look at their intellectual behavior, what they publish and what they tell their students, Darwinism has indeed passed beyond a scientific argument.  I’m attacking their religion, it is a big issue for them.” DG

While he has not embraced the theory of intelligent design, he did say it is an “absolutely serious argument” and that it is the “first, and obviously most intuitive theory that comes to mind.”

David Gelernter is one of many academics who speak out against the fallacies of Darwinism.

#3  Be re-enchanted with important relationships

No matter what’s happened to you, a path can be taken to live a complete life.  Why?

Because I believe no one really wants to depart this life unless they are very ill and in incurable pain.  We want to live.  Why?

To find completion.  Whether it’s a loving family or loving friends, we want to complete our relationships.

A big step away from despair is a commitment to completing the most important relationships in our lives.

What are your thoughts about overcoming despair?