Faith when it feels hopeless

This is from the naked pastor's blog. So moved by it I wanted to share it.

A young man in our congregation asked if this could be read last Sunday morning. He composed it during the week. He’s going through an unbelievably difficult time. We meet often, and I am frequently overcome with the intensity of his struggles right now. I asked him if I could share this with you, and he said I could. I not only appreciate what he had to say, but the fact that he could say it in the context of his spiritual community, his church. The event (the reading and the hearing) says as much about his community as it does about him. What follows is verbatim what he wrote:

Well what is faith? How do we understand it? I believe that faith is being able to continue on with the assumption that there is hope even though everything around you in a worldly sense points to things being hopeless. When all you can see or predict has a likely or potentially negative outcome or an outcome that will continue toward an already downhill turn of events. This is where faith comes in. I look back on my life and I see that these are the times where God has performed the miracles.

A common expression at my work is “to keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity”, the insinuation being that you need to change what or how you are doing things and then you will have success. Well let me tell you sometimes having faith has the same definition. You get to the point where you have tried every option and every way of trying to control or manipulate the situation and as a result, with each event, thing continue to go further and further downhill. This is the point where God comes to you and says, “Are you going to let me take over yet?” This isn’t where you give up but where you give in. This is where you say, “Okay God, I can’t handle it anymore, but I know that you can.”

The reason I am saying this is not because I have already gone through a tough time and now everything in my life has changed for the better. I am saying this because everything in my life is not where I want it to be and continues to go further from where I want or expect it to be. The faith part is not saying how great things turned out after things turn for the good, even though all the way through you questioned or mistrusted God or even at times cursed God. I am here to tell you that I have questioned God and even mistrusted God, even though I do know that anything is possible for God. What I am here to say is that in this time of no hope, that all my trust and all my faith is in God, and I do know that things are going to improve. Not because I can see a way out of it, but because I can’t see a way out of it. But I know God can.

What do you need to let God take over in your life?