Many people at some point have felt trapped by circumstances—a present filled with despair and an unhappy future that seems to hold no solution. One might unknowingly consent to unhealthy gloom.
Despondency was not unfamiliar to the Psalmist, who asked: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?" But being downcast did not shake his trust in God. Nor did he postpone efforts to solve his problem, for his next words offer an answer to benighted thinking: "Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."
Ps. 43:5 Hope is trusting God, holding on, praying expectantly.
An essential step, then, toward refusing consent to darkness and gloom is to turn to God, divine Mind, for fresh inspiration—for a clearer understanding of that Mind and its control of man.
