Hoping against Hope

The Problem with the "Performance Checklist"

I’ve been on a journey the last several years. Many of you, but not all, know to some degree or other about that journey. For those who don’t know, I have had my fair share of struggles with mental health. I’m prone to depression and anxiety; there’s probably some PTSD in there from my time in the service; it’s undiagnosed, but I’m all but certain I have ADHD. In short, I’m pretty neurotic.

I sank into a depression during the COVID lockdown. If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think I ever got right after that. I continued to spiral downward, drinking heavily to cope, and making increasingly self-destructive decisions. Andrew Solomon, reflecting on his own depression, says, “The wish for a more visible illness was, I would later learn, a commonplace among depressives, who often engage in forms of self-mutilation to bring the physical state in line with the mental.” Talking about substance abuse in particular, he writes, “Part of what is most horrendous about depression, and particularly about anxiety and panic, is that it does not involve volition: feelings happen to you for absolutely no reason at all. . . . For many depressives, alcohol or cocaine, or heroin . . . is the intolerable things the horror of which distracts from the more intolerable depression.” I’m not, and have never been, suicidal. However, I did finally arrive at a place of feeling so despondent that I convinced myself that everyone — my family and friends, you all — would be better off without me. And so, one day I packed a bag and left. I was searching for that intolerable pain I could understand that would distract me from the intolerable pain of my depression.

I saw no way out. I struggled against that darkness for a long time in both healthy and unhealthy ways. But it just would not go away. I took to drinking about a fifth of whiskey a night just to sleep — just to shut my brain off. I was honestly asking, “What did I do to deserve this? And what can I do to make it stop?” See, that’s the problem with human nature. We think we can reduce life to a checklist. “Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it!” The field of psychology is filled with these promises: take this pill and everything will be good; go to therapy; try white noise, follow these steps. There’s a reason self-help one of the fastest growing categories in book sales, set to make about 14 billion dollars globally in the next year. Everyone wants to know what they have to do. And if we do the right things, we better receive the right reward. The converse of that, of course, is if you are suffering it’s probably because you aren’t doing the right things. But the problem is life just does not always work this way. You want to know the most unhelpful thing Christians tell people who are depressed? “They just need to pray harder.” I can promise you I prayed and prayed and prayed for that pain to go away. I even tried fasting! Of course, that was probably just the depression causing me to not have an appetite.

The Teacher in Ecclesiastes knows well the trap of thinking that if I do good, I get good. If you read your Old Testament in order, you will go through the book of Proverbs, where the lesson over and over again is, “If you want to be successful, just do [fill in the blank]. Then, you get to Ecclesiastes and are immediately met with a guy saying, “Uh, I don’t think it always works like that. In fact, the only thing we can be certain of is that we are all going to die.”

Paul also addresses this is his letter to the Romans. He writes,

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

The central point of that text is this: we receive the righteousness of God — that is, we become all that God requires — not through our own efforts, but through faith.

The Promise is Grounded in Grace, Not Grit

To prove this point, Paul uses Abraham as an example. Way back in the book of Genesis God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. The problem was, as Paul mentions here, Abraham was about 100 years old and his wife, Sarah, was barren. What God was asking Abraham to do was believe in the impossible — to believe in something that, no matter how hard they tried, they could not bring about on their own. He and Sarah had faith that God’s promise would be fulfilled and they were given a son, Isaac. Several generations later one of Abraham’s descendants, Moses, was given the Law of the Covenant. Every Israelite was to live by this set of commandments to remain in good standing with God. Righteousness depended on fidelity to this set of rules. By the time Paul was writing his letter to the Romans, there had been centuries of this covenantal relationship. It was the absolute foundation upon which every Jew lived: if you want to be considered righteous, you much follow the law exactly.

The problem with this, as Paul points out, is the law didn’t even exist when God made his covenant with Abraham. So what was God’s justification for fulfilling his end of the bargain? Abraham was considered righteous because of his faith. Paul then follows this to its natural conclusion: if the inheritance depended on keeping the law, then faith is pointless. And if faith no long carries any weight, then the promise would be broken. Moreover, Paul says, the law brings nothing but wrath. Every Jewish child was raised on stories of their ancestors being punished because they failed to adhere to the law. None of us can keep it perfectly. Paul says elsewhere in his letter that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Therefore, God had to anchor his promise in something else: grace. Grace means it is a gift. If you have to work for it, it’s just a paycheck. Eugene Peterson paraphrases verses 4:4-5 like this:

If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

Because it relies on God’s grace and not our grit, the promise is guaranteed to all of Abraham's spiritual offspring—including us.

Faith Looks Reality in the Face and Chooses Hope

Imagine for a second that we have a couple in our congregation that are pushing 100, and the man stands up one Sunday during the time we share prayer requests and says, “We decided we were going to try for another kid and we could really use your prayers.” How would you respond? I imagine many of us would respond the same way Sarah did: by laughing. That’s a natural response. Paul says Abraham was as good as dead. Sarah’s womb was biologically dead. In human terms, there was zero hope. But "against all hope, Abraham in hope believed." He didn’t believe in himself or in his own ability. Now, I want to recognize that Abraham did laugh and he did try to force the promise by having a child with Hagar. Paul isn't saying Abraham never had a moment of doubt; he's saying that the trajectory of Abraham's life was defined by trust, not doubt. One commentator says, “Where hope has a great object in view, there will always be fear. If not fear, there will always, however, be that sort of timorous fluctuation which distinguishes hope from assurance. It is thus in worldly affairs. When a great good is expected, but not yet possessed, there will always be an apprehension of losing it.” Here, I want to encourage you all: it is alright to doubt. Doubt is part of faith, not its opposite. The writer Anne Lamott famously noted that “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.” The demand for certainty just puts us back into the law mindset: do this and you will get that. It trades in grace for perfect obedience.

Paul asks us to consider that it’s not what Abraham had faith in, but who. True faith doesn't look at the impossibility of our circumstances; it looks at the absolute certainty of God’s character. And God’s character, Paul says, “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” True faith isn’t toxic positivity or pretending your problems don't exist. It’s looking directly at a dead-end situation (a broken marriage, a failing business, a devastating diagnosis, a deep spiritual struggle) and choosing to believe that God has the final word.

Imagine you are driving down the highway, and suddenly, you hear an ominous ding. You look down at your dashboard, and there it is—the dreaded Check Engine light glowing a bright, warning amber. Now, that light is inconvenient. It’s disruptive. It tells you that something under the hood is breaking down, slipping, or misfiring. It means your journey might have to slow down, and it’s going to cost you something to fix it. But imagine if, instead of pulling over or taking the car to a mechanic, you reached into your glove compartment, pulled out a roll of thick, black electrical tape, tore off a small square, and pasted it right over the light. You look at the dashboard. Problem solved! The light is gone. The dashboard looks pristine and perfect again. You turn up the radio, smile, and tell yourself, "Everything is fine. Just focus on the open road. Positive vibes only."

We would call a driver who does that completely foolish. We know that ignoring the light doesn’t fix the engine; it just guarantees a more catastrophic breakdown a few miles down the road. Yet, when it comes to our spiritual and emotional lives, this is exactly what we do when we fall into toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is the emotional equivalent of slapping black tape over a check engine light. It is a counterfeit version of joy. True joy is a fruit of the Spirit that can coexist with sorrow; toxic positivity is a mask we wear because we are terrified of vulnerability. When tragedy strikes, when depression rolls in, or when grief tears through our lives, our internal "check engine" lights flash furiously. They are signaling that we are broken, hurt, and in desperate need of the Great Physician. But instead of taking our pain to God, our culture—and sadly, sometimes our church culture—hands us a piece of tape. We use phrases like, "Just pray harder," "Everything happens for a reason," or "God won't give you more than you can handle." We demand a bright side before we’ve even allowed ourselves to feel the dark side. We force a smile on Sunday morning because we think admitting we are breaking down means we lack faith. But like that Check Engine light, this almost always guarantees a more catastrophic breakdown later.

The Mechanics of Unwavering Faith

So, how did Abraham maintain his faith? Paul tells us that he ‘did not waver through unbelief... but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.’ This leads right into verse 21, which gives us one of the absolute best definitions of faith in the entire Bible: ‘being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.’ Notice the profound shift in focus here: Abraham didn’t obsess over how the baby would be born; he focused entirely on Who had promised it. He didn't look at his own limitations; he looked at God's track record. This shatters the myth that faith is about having massive spiritual willpower or trying to force yourself to believe harder. True faith isn't about the strength of your resolve; it’s about having a trustworthy Object. At the end of the day, your faith is only as strong as the person you place it in."

In psychology and medicine, we often talk about the Placebo Effect—the fascinating phenomenon where a patient is given a completely empty sugar pill, but because they sincerely believe it is medicine, their brain releases endorphins and they temporarily feel better. Their subjective internal experience changes simply because they have high willpower and a positive outlook. But medical science also knows the strict limit of the placebo effect: a sugar pill cannot cure a malignant tumor. It cannot repair a shattered bone. You can have mountain-moving, 100% certain belief in that sugar pill, but the pill itself has no objective power to save you. When we tell people to "just have faith," we treat faith like a psychological placebo—a tool to make ourselves feel better while facing a hopeless reality. But biblical faith isn't a psychological trick. Abraham wasn't practicing positive visualization to make himself feel better about being childless. He didn't put his trust in a spiritual sugar pill; he put his trust in an objectively powerful God. The strength of your recovery doesn't depend on how hard you believe in the medicine; it depends on the actual, objective power of the remedy.

Conclusion & Invitation: The Promise Extended to Us (v. 23-25)

In verse 23, Paul brings all this home to the modern listener. See, this whole Abraham story wasn't just a history lesson. It was written for us as well. The same God who brought life out of Sarah's dead womb brought life out of Jesus' dead tomb. Biblical scholar, F. F. Bruce says, “the principle [enshrined here] holds good for all believers in God, and especially for believers in God as he is revealed in the gospel—the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus had been delivered up to death because of his people’s sins; but God raised him up to secure their justification.” You don't have to fix yourself to come to God. You don't have to achieve spiritual perfection. You just have to be fully persuaded that what Jesus did on the cross and in the resurrection is enough to cover you.

I don’t particularly like Jelly Roll, but in 2024 Eminem sampled his song Save Me for his own song called Somebody Save Me (take note: this might be the only time you hear Eminem spoken of favorably from a pulpit). Eminem has been quite open about his struggles with substance abuse and his path to recovery. In Somebody Save Me he imagines an alternate reality where he never got better and he misses all these major milestones in his family’s life. The song ends with the refrain: I'm a lost cause / Baby, don't waste your time on me / I'm so damaged beyond repair / Life has shattered my hopes and my dreams. In the darkest depths of my depression, God reached out to me through that song and saved me. I wept and repented. The road back wasn’t and hasn’t been easy. I know I still have a lot of work to do. But I also know that I have become fully convinced that God is able to do what he promised in spite of my own struggles and doubts and shortcomings.

Andrew Solomon says, “People who have been through a depression and are stabilized often have a heightened awareness of the joyfulness of everyday existence. They have a capacity for a kind of ready ecstasy and for an intense appreciation of all that is good in their life.” That’s true. But I would describe it differently. Having emerged from such hopelessness, I now truly understand grace. I know that everything is a gift and God fulfills his promises. Knowing that love isn’t dependent upon what I do or don’t do, but upon who I am, I am able to rest and offer that love freely to others. And that is righteousness.