When we last looked at a view of a Christian following after Jesus we had met one of many pliable Christians. Perhaps you saw a few of these unfamiliar faces in church Easter Sunday. (Perhaps you are one of them.)

We get inspired to join the crowds following Jesus with a commitment not unlike those who laid palms before the Lord then shout ‘crucify him,’ a few days later.

Our faith and spirit are lifted in a brief moment, then disappointment deserts our hope and brings us down into our despondency of futility. The same Prophet Isaiah who predicted Christ speaks the word of the Lord:

My servants will sing for joy, but you will cry in sorrow and despair. – Isaiah 65:14

Have you not sung of the great joy of the resurrection? Yet as soon as you turn from the path near to our Lord you falter in despair and cry out loud in sorrow that the Lord has not brought you through the slough of despond.

Are we not often, my fellow brief believer, caught in the bog of our own view of the world the Lord has made when apart from the company of other believers for twenty-three other hours of Sunday and six other days?

From the Easter service we venture back into the thick darkness of this fallen world and quickly stumble into the bog of hopelessness from which our hearts had been lifted for a time.

What now, we ask? What now, even though I am trying to follow after Christ?

Bunyan explains the doubtings of the new believer. … it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place: and this is the reason of the badness of this ground. 

Compared to the glory of the resurrection, compared to the joy of Christ’s victory over sin and death our daily walk in the old mire of our sin cause our hearts to bear a sluggish weight of sin we have never before considered.

Yet by the mercy of the Lord we have a great hope the moment we look forward rather than quickly back toward our sinful inclinations left behind.

From the garden of despair

And the slough of despond

We cry out to the Living God.

He hears the hopelessness of our plea.

He answers the longing of our prayer.

His mighty Hand

His gentle touch

Will embrace the heart

Of the broken.

His love reaches even

To the depths of the darkness.

Psalm 40:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
² He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
³ He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.

…

…

¹⁷ As for me, I am poor and needy,
    but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
    do not delay, O my God!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials..

1 Peter 3:3,6