What You Can Do When Feeling Helpless

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Date: July 4, 2022

Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. Mark 12:24

Been feeling helpless? All that’s happening in the world might lead you to feel that way.
Feeling helpless has always been a part of the human condition, but we can even find ourselves suffering from what’s called “learned helplessness.” Learned helplessness describes the idea that what we take in—media, political chatter and all kinds of voices that reach us via technology—create imagined realities that cause most people to lose their ability and even their desire to resist. “God! Where are you, and what are you doing?” you may be compelled to ask.
When the religious leaders of Jesus’ day were only interpreting life through the lens of the day, they were also way off in their thinking. “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures,” Jesus said to them, “and you don’t know the power of God” (Mark 12:24).
Scripture describes a people gripped by helplessness in the book of 2 Chronicles. Surrounded by enemies, they were terrified and cried out for rescue saying, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12b). In their feelings of helplessness, they fixed their focus on God, their God, whom they acknowledged as the only God in heaven, the ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. “You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against you!” they said to God and to themselves (2 Chronicles 20:6). And then, even before God intervened, they gave thanks!
When feeling helpless, here is what we can do: set our eyes on God, direct our minds to Scripture and live in the reality of His power rather than our lack.