The Shadow of Despair
(Audio Transcription Below)
This is my very favorite video. It’s about how a small introduction, few in number, changes everything in the ecosystem. The reason I like it is that men, coming in and living in the right way, change the ecosystem of the world. Romans 8:19 says, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” Much like the wolves have this downstream effect on the rivers themselves, men coming into the world’s ecosystem can actually change creation itself. In fact, creation is waiting for Godly men to be revealed because creation was meant to live underneath men and mankind.
Let’s say you decide to introduce the wolves and they decide to live in the caves with the bats. Well then, you’re not going to have the change. You’ve introduced them, but they’ve gone in the cave and are behaving like bats. And I’m afraid that might be similar to what we have in our culture. Men are in a cave behaving like bats and they don’t really know how to act like wolves. They get stuck in caves and therefore we have chaos in families, in communities, in churches. One of those caves that the authors of Fighting Shadows talk about is the Shadow or Cave of Despair. These are caves that men get stuck in and you will have an opportunity to get stuck in this cave. We’re going to talk about what we can do to avoid getting stuck in the Cave of Despair.
In the book Fighting Shadows, the authors talk about a category of death called “Deaths of Despair.” These deaths are usually associated with addiction, alcohol, violence or suicide. These deaths disproportionately affect men. The stat is 200,000 people die annually, which is like a 747 crashing everyday for a year with no survivors.
Formation of Despair
1) Unchecked Desires
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:1-3.
Note who is having the quarrels and fights. The people who are having fights and quarrels are in the church. James is the pastor of the first church in Acts. He’s the half brother of Jesus. The people in the church are having the problems. So often, you get in a cave of despair because you think everything should be going okay. When everything doesn’t work out just right, you get super frustrated. The frustration leads to despair. John Piper says this, “Life is war…that’s not all it is, but it is always that.” We live in a place of constant frustration, but hopefully we can rise above it, or fix it or learn to live with it. But if you’re always waking up saying, “this is the day that I’m not going to have any problems,” then you might easily get into despair.
James does not tackle the issues here. He’s attacking YOU! So often when you get into these arguments, it’s me against you and there’s a winner and loser. James is tackling what’s going on in your heart, that’s his biggest concern. When you’re in conflict or in despair over the circumstances of your life, the very first thing to examine is not the other person, but to examine YOU. There is something at war within me, and before I get into a war with another person I need to see that I’m the biggest problem.
There’s so much happening underneath your life and so many times men are only focused on what people can see. They’re not in touch with all these things that have happened to them in the past or unchecked desires and emotions that are causing them to move in some direction or another.
Notice the seriousness of this unchecked desire. It ultimately leads to murder. That’s a strong word. It doesn’t always mean I’m putting someone to death, it can mean I’m murdering a relationship. The progression is desires that are not met, which leads to disappointment. This will happen today and it’s a key moment. “I came into this situation hoping for…, and I can see I might not be getting it.” What you want to do right then is take 30 seconds and stop. Before you evaluate the situation or other people, evaluate yourself. What’s churning underneath? Does this small problem pull a trigger on a bigger emotional event underneath in my life.
I have a desire, I have a disappointment and then I make a demand. I’ve got to have this, you covet. Unchecked desire turns into demand. You start telling yourself a story at this point. We tell ourselves, “I must have this to be happy.” You’re the hero of the story. If those things don’t lead to getting what you want, you murder. You begin to take actions which puts things to death. Your actions bring separation from your wife, kids, friends, boss. Or you reach for things which you can control to find temporary satisfaction: porn, alcohol, anger. There are a bunch of different ways that men move towards a place of control if they don’t get what they want. The greatest place of despair leads to suicide. They control even killing themselves.
This is a slide that Steve Beck used at our “Conflict Code” weekend. I have a desire, then a disappointing experience and after that I begin to make demands and tell stories. And if I don’t check those demands and stories then I have a response. If you don’t have a good story or check your demands then you have a negative response, a despairing or murdering response.
2) Misguided Telos
The book says, “Telos can be translated as ‘chief aim’ – if your life is an arrow, where it’s pointed is your Telos. That aim dominates how you live.” Holding onto a faulty or insufficient Telos will lead to despair. If you have the wrong aim, eventually you’ll find out, this isn’t satisfying. The author of Ecclesiastes has all kinds of resources, he’s got money, talent and power and he sees that all these things are vanity.
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “it is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine – my heart still guiding me with wisdom – and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had experienced in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
What’s happening with this guy? We don’t want to get caught in the cave of despair. There are four pleasures that he puts to the test:
- Laughter and entertainment: Here’s a wealthy king at a grand party, surrounded by treasure chests overflowing with gold and silver. He is encircled by beautiful women, entertained by the best musicians, envied by everyone in attendance. You can hear the people on the guest list saying, “He’s got it made. This is my goal. His life is an endless party, he’s endlessly entertained, always laughing.”
- Wine (or any kind of addiction): If entertainment alone doesn’t work, let’s add alcohol. Something to anesthetize the pain of the world. An old beer commercial had the tag line, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Men consuming football, consume this message.
- Work and wealth: This man was a gifted entrepreneur, he made maximum use of his time and talent. But notice his use of “I.” I made, I build, I made myself. His Telos was wrong. The story he was telling was that he was at the center of his story. I’m wondering if you wake up and you don’t even know it, but you’re at the center of your story every morning.
- Women: In I Kings, he had 1000 women at his disposal and that still didn’t make him happy. 90% or more of men in this room have had some struggle with pornography. It doesn’t matter how many you see, you’re going to want more.
His conclusion is, it’s vanity.
Some of you know the name Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman was an accomplished actor winning numerous awards including an Oscar for best actor in 2006. On February 2, 2014, Hoffman failed to pick up his three children. They went to his apartment (which cost him $10,000 month) and found him lying on his bathroom floor in boxers and a t-shirt. He had a needle stuck in his arm and bags of heroin lying nearby. Dead at the age of 46. A year earlier, Hoffman said, “There is no pleasure that I haven’t actually made myself sick on.”
Hoffman had the wrong Telos and it led to despair. It’s Ecclesiastes 2. He tried every pleasure and he tried it so much he made himself sick on it. What did it end up doing? At 46 he’s in a body bag coming out of a NYC hotel. He had the wrong Telos. Everything was arced in toward him or something other than the Lord. So he falls into despair. He doesn’t have something outside this world, and this is what the man in Ecclesiastes begins to understand.
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment. Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
The man in Ecclesiastes does eventually come to the right conclusion, the right Telos. You should eat and drink and build and enjoy sex with your wife, but see it all coming from the hand of God. Apart from God, there is no ultimate enjoyment, only emptiness.
This is one of my favorite clips because Tolkien is a Christian and he gets it. There are some ugly beasts beating at your door and they don’t go away. Even in the midst of this trouble, this isn’t the end. There’s another place and he smiles and he imagines it in his mind and Pippin is trying to get caught up in that story.
Questions:
- If you are willing, tell of a personal experience or season of despair.
- James 4 – Unchecked desires: Discuss how you have seen the Despair progression or slide work out in your life. When has an unmet and unchecked desire created problems?
- Misguided Telos: If someone asked you in an elevator, “What’s your chief aim in life?” (and you had to answer realistically, not aspirationally), what would you say in a sentence?
- Four common temptations for men in Ecclesiastes: Which one(s) are you tempted to make your chief aim? Why?
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