Our hope lies in the living God. He is living. He’s not dead or far off, but near and close. He draws us to himself and as we respond he draws us closer to him. You find joy in bringing him praise. You bring him praise when you choose hope over despair.
Life can be despairing and difficult. Circumstances surprise us. Situations shake and seem to overtake us.
But.
Can you stand unafraid when your earth gives way? Can you trust God to open the doors that are meant to open? Can you trust him so that you stand unmoved? When hopelessness persecutes, can you stand on the solid rock and say, “I stand with God and I will not be moved.”
The Secret
One secret in times of hopelessness is the truth that we win. Whether in life or death, when our lives are secure in Christ’s salvation, we win. It’s not about praying for victory, but it’s about praising God for the victory.
That doesn’t mean that your circumstances are going to magically change because you’re standing in the victory of Jesus. It means that your spirit is secure in him, no matter what it is you’re suffering.
Can you give all for love’s true name? When faced with desperation, we automatically lean toward running from the difficulty. But as new creatures in Christ, our minds are in the process of renewal. Our default of hiding during difficult times transforms into standing firm on the Solid Rock, with our eyes fixed securely on the One who leads us on and through and upward and forwards.
Come What May
Always guiding us, always with us, always loving us. Always providing rest when we need it. Giving us the tools we need to stand firm in the face of the storm. Faith to believe that he doesn’t leave us floundering, but gives us the wherewithal to stand. Stand in him. Stand with him. Suffer for him. Suffer because of him.
Our joy and hope is found in him. He is our everything. Come what may. Will you obey? Will you find your joy in bringing him praise?
You do this when you fix your confident hope on the living God. Turn to, rely on, and trust in God. Say yes to him more than you say no. Stop fighting your difficulties and ask God to redeem your pain into beauty.
He may not calm your external storm, but when you fix your hope on God, he does calm the storm that rages within you.
“For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.For to this end we toil and strive,because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:8-10 (ESV)
The New Year arrives and we hope and pray that it contains ease and blessings, but what if it brings you troubles? Do you think you aren’t blessed? Do you doubt God’s goodness? Do you decide hoping isn’t safe?
We think if we can scoot through life with minimal trouble, our lives are blessed. We wrongly judge another by the amount of trouble they face. And we judge ourselves by how much trouble we face. And often we determine our lives are lacking or wanting for more because we can’t see the hope that troubles potentially bring to our lives.
Hope is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it is a person, a feeling, or a thing. Hope as a verb means to look forward to with reasonable confidence, to believe, desire, and trust. Hope is action, it’s sustaining, and life-giving. It’s tangible and at times out of reach.
When I use my circumstances as a litmus test for hope, I feel like a pendulum swinging. Hopeful. . . hopeless. . . hopeful. . . hope-maybe? It’s exhausting and disheartening. If I were to look at merely my circumstances for hope, I would miss out on some wonderful blessings and teachings that my troubles bring me.
Hosea 2:15: “There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.”
In this passage, God is planning on drawing his people to him. They have forgotten him and in his heartache he chooses to run towards them instead of from them. His mercy causes him to draw them near rather than rejecting them. And he uses the desert and troubles to do so.
The Israelites lost their first love. We can relate. It’s easy to forget the hope we had when we were first set free. The troubles of life, the cares of this world and the battle between our flesh and our spirit weigh on us. When we turn to performance and works for hope we lay burdens on ourselves, rather than resting in grace and abiding in Christ.
We look for our hope in blessings and our effort. But hope is Jesus (noun) and it’s trust (verb). Hope takes us from despair to belief when we take our eyes off ourselves and our troubles and onto the God who is within us and who guides us through our troubles.
In our safety conscious world, we think of trouble as bad. But really? Sometimes it’s your door to hope. Placed secure in God’s hands, our troubles become blessings.
They become blessings because they become the catalyst that draws us nearer to God. Troubles often produce a humble heart because we cannot affect change in our own strength. The Valley of Achor becomes the doorway to hope because God gives us eyes to see and ears to hear his will, his way, and his voice.
This New Year is fresh with promise. It’s filled with the promise of God’s presence: his hope, his love, and his joy. The greatest gift you can give yourself is to look at your valley with fresh eyes. Eyes to see God within it, pointing the way through it, and bringing beauty from it. You can look back on your troubles and see them for what they were: the doorway in which you moved closer to God.
Our greatest times of growth are often in the valley where we feel the rain and the wind and the storms. At times, fire sweeps through, and then new growth comes and our hearts become this beautiful landscape of beauty. Fresh green shoots look brighter on a deep black background.
Think of the testimony you become when you allow God to lead you to the desert place so that your trouble becomes a door to Hope. Your troubles become the way you meet God intimately. And guess what? You don’t have to wait until you have a major trouble to know this kind of hope. All of life is filled with daily little troubles. Don’t dismiss the small things. Let the small troubles teach you hope so that when you face the big ones, you’re ready to receive the blessings God has for you on the other side.
Peace seems fleeting and difficult to catch. It’s vapor and mist. I wonder what it would be like to know peace without having to wrestle for it? What happens when our days become night and what was once bright is now dark?
Our flesh may fail, but God never will. God’s plans will come to pass. We will know his healing for our brokenness. Once again our hearts will sing God’s praise. But what do we do in the meantime?
What do we do when we wait for God to move? Or when he does move, he moves us in the wrong direction?
His faithfulness is great. His steadfastness is consistent. He holds us in his hands and that is where our confidence, our peace, rests.
God guides us in ways that are for our best and for his glory. Hence, the struggle with peace. Sometimes it seems as though God is guiding us down a path that is not in our best interest. Then we stomp our feet, and attempt a detour, which sometimes lands us in the belly of a smelly fish.
After Egypt, the Israelites had cloud and fire. They only had to look up to be reassured of his presence. But I’m sure when they looked at their circumstances, they had to wonder. God took them down the desert road to freedom. Then he had them wander before leading them to the edge of the sea with their enemies behind them.
How many times do we want the direct route to a destination ordained by God? Yet, it seems as though we get sent down the desert road to wander here and there. We wonder if this is the best road.
We get so caught up in what is for our best that we forget that our lives are for God’s glory too. And a life for God’s glory may not always look like a “best” life on the outside. It just might mean tragedy, relationship aches, financial challenges, or dealing with personal wounds.
Finding peace in situations like these require us to look beyond our own capabilities within the circumstances and look straight at God.
It means coming to the complete, and total end, of ourselves and finding ourselves in the very best place to be: God’s heart.
He doesn’t fail you. Even when life is failing you, God is still for you. He holds you in his hands and cups you close to his heart. Can you hear it beating? It’s beating a rhythm of peace. It’s the whoosh-whooshing sound of a heartbeat that bled and died and rose again for you.
That’s where you find peace. That’s the place where you can be in an awful situation, and still know God’s peace. It truly is the peace that passes all understanding.
Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.
Peace comfort and guards. If we revisit the Israelites, we find that God battled on their behalf. He guarded their backs while he led the way through the sea. They acted confident until they had no where to go.
He knows what we need. Sometimes he calls us to the battle and other times he calls us to stand still. He knows when we’re acting confident, but inside we quiver like jello. Maybe the next time you feel that way, God is wanting you to be still so he can shock your socks off.
Peace comforts and guards. We reject his comfort because life hurts, and we don’t understand why God doesn’t just do something already. And when we step away from the comfort, we cannot know the protection peace brings us.
Life screams at us, but God whispers. Lean away from the scream and lean into the whisper. And when you lean into God, he will give you the strength to bring glory to him in your life.
Application
Write down one way that peace comforts.
Write down a way that peace guards.
Listen to Do It Again and think about the ways that God has shown up in your life.
