Sometimes in life, you run into a dead end. You’ve given everything you have. Tried everything you can think of to find a way forward. You’ve asked other people fo help. You’ve begged God to fix your situation.
You’ve prayed, cried, yelled, begged, and negotiated. You’ve tried to be patient, but the sun just keeps rising and nothing looks any different. Hope fades, and despair is your constant companion. You can’t catch a break and nothing makes sense. You come to expect disappointment, rejection, failure or whatever else has been stalking you night and day.
People in your life respond with useless cliches about God having a plan, but before long they either start to ghost on you or even criticize you. People say they’ll pray for you, but you’re pretty sure they just actually mean '“good luck with all that.” Even if they are praying, nothing changes.
In your darkest moments, maybe you start to wonder what the point of your very life is, and why God continues to give you breath each day.
If you find yourself in a place like this, a very small piece of encouragement I can offer you is this: you’re not alone in reaching this place. Others are there as well, and others have been there before.
I noticed a few instances of people reaching this place in the narrative of scripture, and what stood out to me was that they all responded the same way. They did something any of us is able to do in our loneliest, most difficult moments.
The first one is Leah.
Leah definitely had a rough path. Her father gave her in marriage to a man who didn’t want anything to do with her. After he married Leah, he also married her sister, who was prettier than her, and a hot mess.
In that culture, having sons was the biggest scoreboard, so Leah was immediately in competition with her sister. And Leah absolutely dominated. Leah has four sons in quick order while Rachel has none. As Leah has these children, she given them names which reveal her mindset throughout:
Her first son, she names Reuben, which means “Look, a son!” and she says that because she has given her husband the greatest gift a wife could be considered to give her husband in her context, “now my husband will love me.”
Her second son, she names Simeon, which means “one who hears” and she says “The Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son.” So after giving her husband one son, she is still unloved, so she puts her hope into her next accomplishment, having two sons.
Her third son she names Levi, which sounds like a Hebrew term that means “being attached” or “feeling affection for.” And she says, “Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him three sons!” How heartbreaking is that? Surely this time my husband will love me. She’s done the most any wife would be expected to do. Nobody can criticize her or say that God isn’t blessing her. But she is unloved through apparently no fault of her own. She isn’t rebellious or quarrelsome. She doesn’t insult, undermine or argue. She just does fulfills her role faithfully, but she’s at a dead end. There’s nothing more she can do. If he husband doesn’t love her after 3 sons, why would 1 more, or 3 more or 10 more matter? Leah finally recognizes that she’s at a dead end. She is unloved and there’s nothing she can do to change her circumstances.
So what does Leah do in the midst of her hopelessness?
We see when she has her fourth son and she names him Judah, which means “praise” and she says “Now I will praise the Lord!” And we are told that at least temporarily, she stops having children after this.
I think Leah stopped needing to put points on a scoreboard, and instead she reached an understanding that her goal needed to stop revolving about what somebody else thought of her, and her situation (which kind of sucked) and turned her focus to something which she had complete control over: her disposition, her attitude, her spiritual life.
When Leah tried everything to get what she wanted, and everything failed, Leah praised God.
You prolly know the story of Job, so I’ll keep my summary brief. Job losses his substantial wealth and he family in one day, for reasons that are utterly unknown to Job. Along with that, he lost his reputation as an upright man blessed by God and instead because viewed as someone who must secretly be doing something terrible which God hated. Even his closest friends voiced this belief.
Whenever I’m in my feels because life is punching me in the gut, I always think of Job, because he wins the trophy for crappy circumstances, and it helps me keep some perspective. But I especially remember Job’s response.
He children are dead. His servants have been killed. His herds and flocks have been stolen. How does Job respond?
Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 2He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:20-21)
Job praises God when he has no answers, no solution…really no hope, he praised God.
Lastly, I think David’s words in Psalm 13 are powerful ones to consider when you find yourself in a dead end of life:
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.
David describes feeling uncared for and uncared about. Sorrow and struggle. Anguish. Despairing of even being alive. And his conclusion? To sing praises to God.
Leah, Job and David all found themselves at a point none of us want to reach, but most of us will find ourselves in at least once or twice in life. And they all responded the same way.
If you find yourself feeling unloved and unwanted despite trying everything like Leah;
If you find yourself devastated and destroyed like Job;
If you find yourself hopeless and in anguish like David;
Turn to praise. It reminds us that we’re not alone. That the pressure isn’t on us to fix everything. That our story is bigger than immediate circumstances. It gives you something on to turn your focus and energy to when everything else makes you want to give up. It lifts you up when everything else is pulling you down.
When you have no clue what else to do, pause. Take a deep breath. And praise God.