Hope
If I were to tell you the past few months have been easy, I'd be lying. The truth is, they've been anything but. The path that I'm walking is not one I would have chosen, in fact, if given the option I would have run as far as I could in the other direction. However, it is the path that God has chosen to lead me down . . . and even though the way ahead continues to look dark and hazardous, looking back I can see His faithful hand guiding, protecting, and wooing. I don't recall only sunshine when I pause to remember, I also recall pain, frustration, and tears, but weaving through all the dreariness, the gold and silver threads of God's wondrous purpose, love, and hope.
There have been dark days and moments, and I'm sure there are probably more to come, but that's not what I want to focus on. Instead, permit me to draw our attention to the theme that Jesus has drawn mine too over the past week or so: that of hope.
Hope . . . it's a word that makes our hearts smile, right? A word that seems to indicate sunshine and joy? In Webster's 1828 dictionary, hope is described as "confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good." What comes to your mind when you hear the word "hope"? I can almost guarantee it's something positive!
As I've been walking through life during this time, I've struggled to be able to hold on to any little shred of hope. I've been dealing with a health issue that just keeps seeming to head the wrong direction! The medicines we've tried don't appear to do what they're supposed to, and I've had moments of wondering when or if I will ever be healthy and have energy again.
I communicated some of my struggles to my mom the other day, and she told me she was going to pray that God would give me hope. Well that very evening at our young adults group God began to answer her prayers. We have been studying Romans, and while most of that evening was spent talking and planning for other things, at the end we spent some time in prayer recounting the mercies of our God as we had seen them in our study of Romans 1-11. As we started to pray, I heard a word that I had heard earlier that day, "hope," and as person after person prayed and thanked God for His mercies that theme of hope kept popping up. No one else may have noticed, but I did.
See, God was reminding me what my hope should be placed in. Not in medicine and doctors, not even in renewed health, but in a God who works all things for good in the lives of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose(Rom. 8:28), in the fact that I am justified and made righteous through faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:24; 4:5; 5:1-2), in the truth that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35-39), in confidence of the future event of His coming when I get to spend eternity with Him in heaven (Rom. 8:18-25), in my God's wisdom and how unfathomable His ways truly are (Rom. 11:33), and in so many more details of who He is and how He works! As He gently reminded me of these things, hope came flooding in. I began to realize that I did not need to have the hope that I would feel well again during my time on this earth, because that would be such a shallow hope, compared to the hope of who my God is and all that He has promised!
Don't get me wrong, I still would love to be healthy. However, God is patiently teaching me, that true hope is not based in our circumstances, but in Him!
This past weekend He continued to encourage me, and send wind to keep my kite of hope flying, by reminding me of these verses in Lamentations: "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him" (3:21-25).
Do circumstances have you down? Look up, my friends, there is hope in Him!
There are many more verses on hope that I could share . . . but half the fun is hunting for them! So I will leave it to you and God to discover or rediscover the rest of those jewels tucked away in His Word. :)
There have been dark days and moments, and I'm sure there are probably more to come, but that's not what I want to focus on. Instead, permit me to draw our attention to the theme that Jesus has drawn mine too over the past week or so: that of hope.
Hope . . . it's a word that makes our hearts smile, right? A word that seems to indicate sunshine and joy? In Webster's 1828 dictionary, hope is described as "confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good." What comes to your mind when you hear the word "hope"? I can almost guarantee it's something positive!
As I've been walking through life during this time, I've struggled to be able to hold on to any little shred of hope. I've been dealing with a health issue that just keeps seeming to head the wrong direction! The medicines we've tried don't appear to do what they're supposed to, and I've had moments of wondering when or if I will ever be healthy and have energy again.
I communicated some of my struggles to my mom the other day, and she told me she was going to pray that God would give me hope. Well that very evening at our young adults group God began to answer her prayers. We have been studying Romans, and while most of that evening was spent talking and planning for other things, at the end we spent some time in prayer recounting the mercies of our God as we had seen them in our study of Romans 1-11. As we started to pray, I heard a word that I had heard earlier that day, "hope," and as person after person prayed and thanked God for His mercies that theme of hope kept popping up. No one else may have noticed, but I did.
See, God was reminding me what my hope should be placed in. Not in medicine and doctors, not even in renewed health, but in a God who works all things for good in the lives of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose(Rom. 8:28), in the fact that I am justified and made righteous through faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:24; 4:5; 5:1-2), in the truth that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35-39), in confidence of the future event of His coming when I get to spend eternity with Him in heaven (Rom. 8:18-25), in my God's wisdom and how unfathomable His ways truly are (Rom. 11:33), and in so many more details of who He is and how He works! As He gently reminded me of these things, hope came flooding in. I began to realize that I did not need to have the hope that I would feel well again during my time on this earth, because that would be such a shallow hope, compared to the hope of who my God is and all that He has promised!
Don't get me wrong, I still would love to be healthy. However, God is patiently teaching me, that true hope is not based in our circumstances, but in Him!
This past weekend He continued to encourage me, and send wind to keep my kite of hope flying, by reminding me of these verses in Lamentations: "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him" (3:21-25).
Do circumstances have you down? Look up, my friends, there is hope in Him!
There are many more verses on hope that I could share . . . but half the fun is hunting for them! So I will leave it to you and God to discover or rediscover the rest of those jewels tucked away in His Word. :)
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