Article: How to Tell Whether You've Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz

As I read through the article, I realized that each corresponds to a different type of rejection of God.

Angst:

Angst is the word for fear in German, Dutch, and Danish. It comes from the same Indo-European root (meaning tight, constricted, painful) that gave us anguish, anxiety, and anger. In the mid 19th century it became associated with a specific kind of existential dread through the work of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He talked about a type of anxiety that arises in response to nothing in particular, or the sense of nothingness itself. It’s not exactly fear, and not the same as worry, but a simple fact of the human condition, a feeling that disrupts peace and contentment for no definable reason.
*****
...Angst foregrounds dissatisfaction, a complaint about the way the world is.

Angst is a result of the rejection of God as the God of the peace that passes understanding. If God is not there to fill our lives, nothing (that is, nothingness) will. If real peace, the peace that passes understanding, does not fill our lives, we are going to experience that fear of angst. And it will express itself in complaint.

Ennui:

Young people at that time, feeling that the promises of the French Revolution had gone unfulfilled, took on an attitude of lethargic disappointment, a preoccupation with the fundamental emptiness of existence.
*****
By the middle of the 19th century, ennui became associated with the alienation of industrialization and modern life. Artists and poets suffered from it, and soon a claim to ennui was a mark of spiritual depth and sensitivity. It implied feelings of superiority and self-regard, the idea being that only bourgeois people too deluded or stupid to see the basic futility of any action could be happy.
*****
Ennui also has connotations of self-indulgent posturing and European decadence.

Wow, segments of our population (academics, pundits, and celebrities) are stuffed full of moral "superiority and self-regard" and unsubstantiated claims of "spiritual depth and sensitivity."

Ennui grows out of a rejection of God as the One who has good plans for our lives, who "works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". If life is empty, it is because God does not fill it.

Weltschmerz:

Weltschmerz, German for “world pain....” It describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is.
*****
Though weltschmerz and ennui are pretty close synonyms, ennui foregrounds the listlessness brought on by world weariness (it can also be a term for more simple boredom), and weltschmerz foregrounds the pain or sadness. There is perhaps a greater sense of yearning in weltschmerz (part of the pain is that the sufferer really wants the world to be otherwise).

Weltschmerz is a rejection of God as the "Paracletos." The One who walks along side. The Counselor. The Healer. Life as a fallen human being, among fallen human beings, is going to be painful. God alone is one who brings healing and consolation (Well, "God alone," also through the people willing to serve.)

The love of God

Romans 5:5 (NASB)
...and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

It's biblical. Am I willing to ask for it? Wait for it? Receive it? And receive His love freely, as the gift it is?

Hope does not disappoint

Romans 5:1-5 (New American Standard Bible)

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
3  And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:5 [Amplified Bible]

5 Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.

The sort of hope that the world has does disappoint, does delude, does shame us.  It is placed in fellow human beings and in the physical world we live in. They will fail. Church "leaders" are all fellow, fallen human beings. We cannot put hope into a pastor, an elder, a prophet, a teacher. Into a politician, a celebrity, businessman, whatever.

Where does our hope come from? 

It is first rooted in our salvation, by faith, through grace. The result of salvation is worship from the depth of our beings. We are alive with gratitude for being set free from our sins, for being forgiven.

Then we have something none of us likes to talk about: tribulation, troubles, suffering. If we persevere in the face of troubles, the result is proven character. THEN we get to God's type of hope.  Our hope in the world, the people of the world, the things of the world has been abraded away.

We experientially know God's love for us in the person of the Holy Spirit. He is alive in us and we have been immersed in Him.  This is the hope that does not disappoint because it a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in us.