Complete in Thee: These Three: Part 2: HOPE

Thursday, April 29, 2010

These Three: Part 2: HOPE

I wrote most of this last month; I'm not sure how good it is (probably not very well-written) but I hope it may encourage some of you. :-)

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Hope.

It's a word we say often, but don't always lay to heart.

Hope.

How easy it is to lose hope! In our humanness, it is easy to look at circumstances, to fail to see God's hand at work, and to think, "Nothing will ever change... why hope if nothing is going to happen?" I found myself considering this issue the other month. There was something that I have been praying about for a very long time, and I thought I saw God beginning to work in this situation, and my earthly self thought quickly, "Don't hope-- you have hoped something would happen before and your hopes were dashed. Don't make yourself vulnerable to let them be dashed again."

But then God, who is so much wiser than I, began to bring to my attention many verses that contradicted this fleshly thought. Some of these He pointed out to me as I read His Word. Others He reminded me of through the words of a very sweet friend.

The first I had posted up on my wall in my bedroom:

"Love bears all things,
believes all things,
HOPES all things,
endures all things."
(1 Corinthians 13:7)

True, Christlike love does not think, "I can't see so-and-so getting right with God, so why hope?" Instead, it trusts God and prepares itself to see Him work.

But what if hope disappoints me??

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed (or as I read elsewhere, "does not disappoint"); because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:3-5)

Hope is a little bit like faith. With both hope and faith, you can't see, but you must choose to believe. Webster's 1828 defines hope this way: "To cherish a desire of good, with some expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable." It is not an "I wish, I wish, I wish", but looking forward to something with a belief that God is able to, and will, do as He has promised.

When I was thinking over this topic of hope, I was reminded of the scene in our Pilgrim's Progress audio tapes, which I believe isn't in the book... After Christian discovers the Key of Promise when he and Hopeful are in the Dungeon of Despair, he takes a moment to see if anyone else in the dungeon will be free with him and Hopeful. "Will anyone choose to believe God's promise, and act upon it?" The one man they speak with, however, is so trapped in the changes of Despair, that he cannot reach out in hope and be freed. Thinking of that scene, I considered how we can see God work in wonderful ways when we hope and believe in Him, and how the opposite of Hope is Despair, which chains us in and prevents us from seeing God work and fulfill His promise.

We can hope and trust in God because Jesus has risen from the dead and given us life in Him. We can hope and believe to see God work because He has promised to do so. Let us not lose heart. Let us hope in the Lord.

"It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." (Lamentations 3:25)

"For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." (Romans 8:24-25)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter 1:3)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: That was very good, Melanie!
And it was encouraging! Thanks for posting it!
~Esther~; May 3, 2010 at 5:59 PM

PRAYER REQUESTS

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints" (Ephesians 6:18)

PLEASE PRAY...

* That I would draw nearer to God every day and never allow my relationship to become stagnant ritual; particularly that I would grow in the area of submission, patience, 1 Corinthians 13 love, and wholehearted devotion

* That I might have wisdom as I edit "The Marquis' Daughter"; that the Lord would bless and work through it; and that I might find just the right publisher for it.

* That I would submit to the Lord's work in my life, whatever it may be; that I would take each opportunity He brings me (even the seemingly hard ones) to draw closer to Him and point others to Him

*That our Etsy shop might be successful and that it would be a means by which we can glorify God and share the Gospel

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

"The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?"

"God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to."

"If God, like a father, denies us what we want now it is in order to give us some far better thing later on. The will of God, we can rest assured, is invariably a better thing."

"Obedience to God's will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God's will that brings certainty."

"Victory over all the circumstances of life comes not by might, nor by power, but by a practical confidence in God and by allowing His Spirit to dwell in our hearts and control our actions and emotions. Learn in the days of ease and comfort, to think in terms of the prayer that follows, so that when the days of hardship come you will be fully prepared and equipped to meet them."

"And shall I pray, Oh, change Thy will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
Ah no, Lord, no, that never could be, rather
I pray Thee, Blend my human will with Thine."

"A crucified life cannot be self-assertive. It cannot protect itself. It cannot be startled into resentful words. The cup that is full of sweet water cannot spill bitter-tasting drops, however sharply it is knocked."

"And as we rest our hearts upon what we know (the certainty of the ultimate triumph of good), leaving what we do not know to the Love that has led us all our life long, the peace of God enters into us and abides. And then we see our light."

[A Practicing Christian]...it means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God. It means looking at everything as something that comes from Him, and always looking to Him and asking His will first, and saying, "How would he wish me to deal with this?"

Christ says: "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you."

"I was not born to be free. I was born to adore and to obey."

"What is saving but taking us out of the dark into the light? There is no salvation but to know God and grow like Him."

"I will not try to convince you of anything about God. I cannot. You must know Him. I only tell you I believe in Him with all my heart. You must ask Him to explain Himself to you, and not take it for granted that He has done you a wrong because He has done what you do not like. Whether you seek Him or not, He will do you justice. But He cannot explain Himself unless you seek Him."

"Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes into the life of a peaceful individual, without warning of gathered storm, something terrible will fall. And from that moment everything is changed. That life is no more what it was. Better it ought to be, worse it may be. The result depends on the life itself and it's response to the invading storm of trouble. Forever after, it's spiritual weather is altered. But for the one who believes in God, such rending and frightful catastrophies never come but where they are turned around for good in his own life and in other lives he touches."