Paul cries out: 'What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?' This is despair. Real, honest despair. And it's in the middle of Scripture.
I spent five years in therapy working through depression. I was a Christian the whole time. I prayed. I read the Bible. But the darkness was so deep that sometimes I couldn't feel God. Some days, the only honest prayer I could pray was Paul's: 'Who will rescue me?' Not 'I believe Jesus rescues me.' But 'Will someone rescue me?' The question itself.
I've learned that faith isn't the absence of doubt or despair. It's what you do with doubt and despair. Paul expresses both. He's wretched. He needs rescue. And then—in the very next verse—he answers his own question: 'Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!' It's not fake optimism. It's the reality that even when you're honest about your brokenness, grace is there. I'm grateful for Paul's honesty about the dark nights. It made space for me to be honest too.
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