Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?

Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately? gathers fifteen David Wilkerson messages for Christians under emotional, spiritual, relational, and practical pressure. The book speaks to hurt, discouragement, failure, guilt, temptation, unanswered prayer, weakness, loneliness, and the sense that God has become distant or silent. Its governing concern is perseverance: how a believer can continue trusting God when circumstances remain painful, spiritual feelings disappear, or personal failure makes hope difficult. Wilkerson repeatedly returns to God’s love, faithfulness, forgiveness, and strength as the ground for endurance.

The opening messages address inner hurt and the desire to quit. Wilkerson does not assume that sincere faith prevents grief, depression, confusion, or exhaustion. He draws on biblical people such as David, Job, Paul, and others who passed through seasons of distress and apparent abandonment. The practical question is not how to deny pain but how to keep faith when immediate relief does not come. The Psalms, Job’s search for God in suffering, and Jesus’ teaching about the Father’s care all support the conviction that God has not forgotten the believer even when His care cannot presently be felt.

Several messages form a substantial cluster around recurring sin, temptation, guilt, and self-condemnation. In “Victory over Your Besetting Sin,” David’s fall in 2 Samuel and the conflict described in Romans 7–8 help Wilkerson address Christians who repeatedly fail in an area they sincerely want to overcome. “How to Win over Temptation” turns to 1 Corinthians 10 and the believer’s fear of Satan’s power, insisting that victory rests in God’s faithfulness rather than in elaborate formulas. The messages on guilt and condemnation use 1 John’s teaching on confession, forgiveness, and Christ’s advocacy to distinguish repentance from continuing to punish oneself after forgiveness has been received.

Prayer receives significant treatment, especially where it appears unanswered. Wilkerson speaks to believers who have prayed earnestly, waited, searched themselves, and still do not see the expected answer. Paul’s weakness in 2 Corinthians 12 becomes a key example: God may answer by supplying grace and strength in weakness rather than by removing the condition. The book therefore resists treating faith or prayer as a technique for forcing a result. Waiting, trusting God’s timing, and continuing in faith when no explanation is available are part of Christian perseverance.

Human weakness is another recurring subject. “You Cannot Carry Your Own Cross” and “God Can Use You in Spite of Your Weakness” challenge the assumption that spiritual usefulness depends on natural strength. Wilkerson uses the cross, Simon of Cyrene, Paul’s weakness, and other biblical examples to show that dependence on God often deepens precisely where self-sufficiency fails. In “When You Don’t Know What to Do,” 2 Chronicles 20 and Jehoshaphat’s confession that Judah had neither power nor a plan provide a pattern for crisis: acknowledge helplessness and keep the eyes fixed on God.

Other messages address spiritual dryness, emotional dependence on other people, broken relationships, family pain, illness, and storms that make Jesus difficult to recognize. Spiritual warfare appears especially in temptation, fear, accusation, and the believer’s need to resist exaggerated views of Satan’s power. The Holy Spirit is presented as helping weakness and sustaining prayer, but the book’s practical center remains trust in God rather than a detailed doctrine of the Spirit.

The final message, “The Ultimate Healing,” places physical suffering and death within resurrection hope. Philippians 1 and other passages turn attention from the expectation that every present illness must be removed to the believer’s final hope of resurrection, life with Christ, and a transformed body.

For readers, the book answers ordinary but urgent questions: What can I do when I feel like giving up? Does God still love me after I fail? How can I face a sin that keeps returning? How do I stop condemning myself after repentance? Why does God seem silent? What if prayer remains unanswered? Can God use me when I feel weak? What should I do when I have no solution to a crisis? How can I endure relational pain or spiritual dryness? And what hope remains when healing does not come? Across the collection, Wilkerson’s answer is to continue in faith, receive God’s forgiveness, depend on His strength, and trust His love when feelings and circumstances offer little support.