Chambers' text found here in the original English, and here in the modern English.

The Scripture passage for today is Revelation 1:17:  When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.

     If you struggle with anything you can't conquer, then by all means read today's Oswald Chambers' devotional for May 24.  And for a firsthand account of that kind of despair, read what I write below.

     For nearly ten weeks, the Chambers Project blog has taunted me with its emptiness.  "I'll catch up," I assured myself, that first night, when a fall down a flight of stairs made it impossible to do my work.  By the fifth night, I knew I was in trouble, but still I kept saying "I can catch up, I can catch up", not unlike, I might add, that classic children's book we all loved reading our kids. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." 

     Alas, the Little Engine always does what we cannot.it always, always conquers that hill. 

     Not us; we don't always conquer.  In fact, one of the most damaging myths circulating Christian churches today is the one that says God never promises life will never be more than we can handle.  That statement is utterly false.  Every day, a Christian gives up and ends his/her life in despair.  Every day, a Christian collapses under the weight of their worldly worries, withdrawing from people and even faith.  God never promises that this sinful, fallen world won't overwhelm us sometimes; won't beat us into submission and surrender; where even the act of getting back up doesn't seem likely or possible.  While God does promise us we'll never face a sin we can't conquer, there's no promise life won't beat us sometimes.

     But God also promises that even in those moments when it does beat us, He will be there to pick us up.  And that's important because, for the most part, by the time we've reached our point of despair, we've worn out our welcome among our earthly friends.  That's not a criticism of them as friends; for they, too, have limits, and often the burden of watching others suffer threatens their own balancing act, and they just have to walk away in order to keep doing what God wants them to do. 

     So in our despairing moments, it is often only God who is still around to reach out His hand.  (And by the way, when it's God and someone else, then you have real discovered real treasure indeed.)

     That's what Chambers' means in his writing today on the "Delights of Despair".  It isn't a joy in the circumstances, it's realizing God is still present; that even when we've abandoned ourselves, He hasn't.

      It's the moment when we realize our physical lives (<----see this link)are as rigidly dependent on His strength as our spiritual lives, and it happens again and again and again because, like the Israelites in the book of Judges, we will forget this life-lesson almost as quickly as we learn it.

     So here's the promise, and don't miss that it comes after Paul first declares in the despair of Romans 7 that "in me no good thing dwells"and adds that famous passage we all know by heart in the heat of our failure, (paraphrased)"the things I wish I did, I never get around to doing; and the things I wish I didn't do are the very things I always seem to find myself doing.": There, in Romans 8, perhaps the most eloquent and noble and hopeful passage in Scripture; there, after railing against his inability to conquer his failures, and how deeply entrenched they are, he declares the hope of hopes that every believer must grasp as they claw themselves back up from their darkest place:  "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

     So it's no surprise, then, that on this day, when I finally muster the strength to overcome my own immense embarrassment and deep frustration with these physical limitations, including the raging anger that comes from having to bow powerless before this constant pain that keep me from keeping even the promises I make to myself, that at long last when I start the blog back up, I'd find Oswald Chambers writing about "the Delight of Despair." 

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  Whether your struggle is with the tangled torture of drugs and/or alcohol;
  
  
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  or repetitive, relentless sin;
  
  
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  or the deep abyss of anxiety and depression;
  
  
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  or the terrible embarrassment of financial collapse;
  
  
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  or the distressingly repetitive collapses in your career;
  
  
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  or a soul-wrenching battle with health problems that seem unfixable;
  
  
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  or the heartbreak of lost love;
  
  
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  or lost loved ones;
  
  
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  or even the brokenness of the loss of the love of those you love;

     When everybody else is too tired or too distracted or too hurt or too frustrated or even too angry to stay close to you.and even in those days when the things you do or are doing or have done make it reasonable that no one wants to have anything to do with you.God declares He will never leave you nor forsake you.

   Just for today; don't think about fixing things or changing things.  Think instead about this: Our God is able to keep you when you can't keep yourself; and He is committed to doing that even when you aren't.

   Lean on Him; let Him lift you.  Don't look at tomorrow or even tonight. Look only at now.  Then put one foot under you as He lifts you up; and only when you have the strength again, let Him lift you up and set you back on the road.

     He'll wait as long as it takes.

     Even if it's ten weeks. 

     Welcome back everybody, and thank you for your patience.  We'll take this journey together, one step at a time.

So-Whats for Work: We were made to be in relationship with God, so even when we can't work, we still have purpose and value and meaning.  Never let the dark days of incapacity be a measure of God's love for you; or your value to those who love you.

So-Whats for Home:  Never forget those who love you also need you, and are of greater import than anyone else in the world; including your boss and your friends. When you lack the strength to ask God to help you for yourself, ask Him to help you for them.  It is always harder for loved ones to watch suffering they can't alleviate than it is even to be the sufferer one's self.    

So-Whats for Community: Let those who have the gift of mercy stand tall in the hours when their friends and family feel most despairing.  He or she who can stand with someone in their darkest moments shines the light of Christ brighter than any person any time in any circumstance, and their crowns in heaven will be great.  That is grace in action, and it is community as God intended it here on earth, and how it will be in eternity.  

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