Hope

Hello, welcome, I hope you guys are doing well! Today I wanted to share a little bit about what God has been teaching me and revealing to me. Last week was an emotional week for me because God asked me to do these things, and I did, which was very hard for me to do in the first place, but I had to be obedient. After I did it, I didn't see the fruit of my obedience immediately, which caused me to start questioning everything because I stepped out in obedience, and I saw nothing to show for it. As I was venting, complaining, crying out to God, asking “why?” He checked me quickly. He made me realize my hope was not in him rather my hope was circumstantial. It was situational. That is not what the bible says where our hope should be placed. The song Ruins by Maverick City was playing a couple of days later, and it was worded perfectly to what I was feeling at that moment: “I look around and all I see are burning buildings, barren trees, hopelessness is starting to wreak havoc.” Because my hope was not in Jesus, one reason after another came up as to why my life feels like it was in shambles. As to why everything sucks. I know I am not the only one who has felt this way. You may have gone through a situation that has caused you to lose hope. David from the bible, the David who fought Goliath, certainly did. There were many troubles in his life. I cannot relate to him at all to the extent of what he went through, but troubles nonetheless like mine, but his response was different than mine. 

It is going to be very scripture heavy today. 

In 2 Samuel 7:1, it reads, “After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him”. How did David have peace in the middle of being surrounded by his enemies? Because he placed his hope in the Lord. He could have easily been overwhelmed, knowing that he was surrounded by his enemies. That was how I was feeling, I was overwhelmed because all I saw were my surroundings filled with enemies. I was looking at my circumstances and wondering if there was ever going to be a change, but David refocused and redshifted his mind onto the Lord, and that is where and from whom he got his peace. The second section of the song Ruins started to take the eyes off themselves and put it on Jesus, his character “You rebuild, you restore all that is broken”. I couldn’t sing it because I didn’t believe it, but David did. He would’ve kept singing because he placed his hope in Jesus and Jesus alone. Isaiah Song, also by Maverick City, came to mind because it was saying to sing in the middle of our barren season in the middle of the desert, not just when God takes us out. It is easy to sing when we see a glimmer of light, when we see things changing, but we have to sing when the river is dry, when the well is empty, and when you are broken, because He is just as good then as He is, then when everything is going right.

Micah 7:7 says, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me”. Are we putting our hope in God, or are we putting our hope in other things? We can have hope in the middle of waiting for God to come through with that job, with the good news about the doctor's report, an acceptance letter, but if those things don’t work out the way YOU hoped for, can you still put your trust in God? Are we putting our trust more in the things God promised or in God? Because Micah said he watched in hope for the Lord, period. He didn’t say I watch in hope for the things God is going to provide for me. Is God enough? Is the hope you have in having just God in your life enough? 

In this life, we are not promised a successful career, a big house, a big car, or financial stability; we must be good stewards of what God has blessed us with, but in James 1:2 it says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” it doesn’t say if you face trials but when you face trials. During those trials, we have an active and alive God who gives us hope through Jesus Christ because he is our living hope. 1 Peter 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. We are so blessed, God is so merciful to us, because during these trying times, we can cling to His son, Jesus, who is our living hope. The only sustainable thing we can put our hope in. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can abound in hope. In Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”. The Holy Spirit gives us an abundance of hope. It is freely ours, but we must ask in faith that we will overflow with faith. 

Faith and hope kind of go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”. It assures us in our hope because we have faith in Jesus and are convinced of the things that we cannot see yet with our carnal mind or see in the natural. Romans 8:24-25 talks about what exactly is hope, it says, “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently”. You cannot hope for something that is in front of you, then it would be living by sight, not faith, because 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we live by faith, not by sight”. 

When we cannot see the things that are hoped for and still endure in faith, that is where character development happens. Romans 5:3-4 “suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope”. We can pray for the bad things to be taken away from us, which we all pray for from time to time, but God allows us to go through that to produce good fruit. Because he is a refiner, he will prune you until you produce good fruit, until you look more like Christ. Your character matters more to Jesus than that boy or that title, because if you step into that without proper character, you will fumble the ball. In Luke 22:31-32, you see Jesus praying for Peter, not for him to be taken out of the situation, but for his faith not to fail in that situation. For him to strengthen the other disciples when he makes it out of it. Same thing in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was distraught, but still He cried out to God, saying, “not my will but yours”. He needed to endure that because when he came out of it, the Holy Spirit was sent to help us, and we have an example of the fruit that came out of that endurance and an example to follow on how to endure in faith. 

That reminds me of a conversation a friend and I had the other day. I was telling her about a situation I was going through, and funny enough, she went through something similar not too long ago, and the Holy Spirit helped her through it. She came out on the other side of it with her character and perspective refined. Because of her anecdote, she was able to speak life into me, encourage me, correct me, and the Holy Spirit convicted me through her words.

Thank you so much for reading. You can check out my video about hope on my YouTube channel. I hope this was encouraging and a blessing to you. Until next time!