If allowed to control your thoughts, feelings of hopelessness can prevent you from living the kind of life that God intended. Feelings of hopelessness can cause us to act as if things in our lives will never change and give up on our dreams and desires.

Many of you are just going through the motions in life. The drive and determination that you once had to believe God is gone. Hopeless feelings have caused you to feel as if your life is worthless.

You are just drifting through life. You are getting up in the morning, going to work, and coming home. You are doing the things that you need to do, but you are not going beyond that. When you hear scriptures or messages that tell you “God will do it,” you don’t have the strength to believe. Your life circumstance and situations have left you feeling dead inside and feeling “nothing.” Hopelessness has invaded your spirit and is threatening to shake your faith.

Hopelessness is not just a thought, but it’s a feeling that can get into your spirit. And once it gets into you, it controls your entire life. Feelings of hopelessness do not just cause people to say “I feel hopeless” and sit home and do nothing. You see, many people feel hopeless on the inside but are busy on the outside. They are quoting scriptures, encouraging everyone else, but they are empty inside. These people are busy, but their spirits are “down,” and they are not in the same place they once were spiritually.

Feelings of hopelessness can keep us from believing in God at the level that He desires for us. Not every believer is living at the optimal level of his or her faith. Everyone is not walking in all that God has for them because their hope has been shaken. Once your confidence becomes “shaky,” you are vulnerable to being overwhelmed by hopelessness. It becomes difficult for you to believe in God.

We should be increasing in our faith, not digressing or staying still. What happened to what you once believed about God and His Word? Like a bucket with a small hole in it that is leaking water slowly, some of us have been leaking out strength and faith for so long that we don’t know when it started. Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. Your behavior is an indicator of what you are thinking and feeling. Why are you so tired? Why are you just “blah” when it comes to the promise of God for life? You smile, nod, and feel nothing. Listen, you ran well, but what is hindering you?

When your hope is shaken, your faith is impacted. And without faith, you can not advance any further than you are now. Without hope, you don’t have the spiritual energy that you need.
It is one thing to pray about a situation for one week or two days. It’s another thing to have to believe for a month or years. It is in the waiting that our hope can fade. Can your hope sustain the journey? If not, lose yourself in Jesus Christ.