Against All Hope

Tonight I had a crisis of the heart and soul.

I was laying in my bed and I drempt about how I remembered all of the saints that I have know. And how their prayers sounded. Particularly Francis Collins and Shirley Ritchy-Grace. I can hear how the tamber of their voice and the ernestness of their prayers.

When I awoke, I felt alone in my darkened room. Alone in my darkened life. I felt that there was a nothing and nobody around including God. Where was he. How did he allow the things of my life to occur.

Slowly, I starting to think of all of the times that I prayed to him. The times that I felt his presence. Why weren't they comforting me? Were they all an illusion? Something that was a temporary fixation or defensive mechanism to protect me from my own mortality.

I called out in the darkness. Not sure if anyone was listening. Perhaps my neighbor, but was God listening? Was He there to hear my calls?

I kept asking him for a sign. To call my name or to place something on top of the doubt so that I know it was him. For He placed something in the mist of my turmoil so that I could feel his presence. At this time in my life, I had so many forced pushing down on me. I felt my soul was this whirlwind of stress, doubt, fear, trebidation. This whirlwind was going faster. My friend Ernesto prayed over me and with me. We each were on our hands and knees. Tears falling. Praying Psalms 32... "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against himn and in whose spirit there is no deceit"

We played this game Cranium, I think, which has an hourglass of sand to kept track of a turn. When the sand ran out, the turn was over. My point is not to make some out of the piece other than to say in my minds eye, there was something about that size in the midst of this storm of uncertainty. I could feel the storm ranging, but there was peace the size of the game piece in heart of the storm. For I knew at that point, He placed this calm in the middle of my soul as a testimet to His Power and more importantly to His existance.

So, tonight I tried to recall that peace. To bring it back and place in the hold. My mind raced as to what does it mean? Why wouldn't God do this for me? Does He really exist? Doubt crept back in.

I started crying out louder to him. Begging him to call out to me as I laid in my bed. Waves of uncertainty washed over my soul again. Could all of this been just some deliusion? Something to keep me away from the truth that I am a mortal? That at some day I will Die? Or that father will die or my mother? Or my wife or my daughter? Perhaps sooner than me? Am I worm food or eternal?

Laying there, I didn't know. God wasn't answering me. He didn't bring a bright light and shine it on me as he did Saul who became Paul. He didn't cure my overweightness or make me attractive or even called out my name. I kept remembering Revelation 3:20 "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in an sup with him and he with Me." So I call out, Speak so that I can hear you. Knock already. But nothing. No sound other than the spinning of the overhead fan and the light blinking from the smoke detector indicating the battery needed changing. but, Where is God? He said he would knock! He said he would speak so I can hear his voice? Am I deaf now? Have I fallen so far that I can't hear the voice?

I jumped out of my bed and I got on my hands and knees. Tears again falling. Where was God? I am not dead, why isn't He coming? Why isn't he lighting up the sky with the multitude of Angels brighting it up so that even those whose eyes are covered can see? Where is my Jesus? My God, have thou forsaken me? Are you even able to forsake? Are you even real?

In the midst of the shroud of doubt and dismay, I wondered if I was an athest. Someone who finally came to the realization the there is no God.


one verse, however, did light up my night, but no in the sense of a coming Jesus. No one else saw this light in this room for I was alone.

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed" Romans 4:18

Nothing prevailed me to believe at that moment in Jesus Christ. No hope of his existance was afforded me. Nothing was there. Jesus and God didn't come.

Yet, in this hopelessness, hope came.

For before, I counted on God as a Crutch, something to grab a hold of to steady myself. It was easy when I lost the presure to slip back because he existed to bring peace to the situation, not peace to me.

I dug into the word to try to find something solid to put my foot upon. To build upon my rock. But I didn't find it. For I could see how they were words of men. And I knew that words were only breaths. They could be noble, inspiring, awesome, but again just breath against the coldness of reality.

It wasn't until I realized that it is "against all hope" Nothing can be said definitely about God's existence. No fact can be made. No proof can be reasoned. Simply, against all hope.

But in my hopelessness, I believe. In my doubt is the only place I can find certainty, not of the doubt, but of the hope. "Abraham in hope believed." For anything else, I am believe in what I see or feel or psychologically imagine.

"Against all hope, Jeff in hope believes"

I am not saying that God was not part of those experiences that I have needed and wanted. That he hasn't called my name. That he hasn't held me, for in believe, in hope, that he has.

For there is no floor, no rock in litature, or bible study or history that can support my weight. It can be reasoned away. Therefore, God had to show me that it is in my choice against the hope that became the floor to support me.

Perhaps, gentle reader, this make no sense. That's ok. It will someday. Against All hope, I in hope believe.