Hope

As my husband and I have been venturing through this season of life, it has left us feeling hopeless at times. For me personally I've even questioned God's love for me, which is pretty crazy because I know God loves me. God's love has been so transforming for me in the past that I've been a big advocate of it. Yet, we've gone through a time of wondering why God hasn't answered our prayers yet. (We've been praying for years for a specific thing.) It feels like recently God has been very silent with us. It's in those moments we would lose hope. Even though I know in my mind that the Lord loves me, my heart gets so downtrodden that I have a hard time believing His love.

All of this got me thinking about hope. I remember reading in the bible that God is a God of hope. I decided to dig further. The online bible study tool I use said there is over 300 references to hope but only 8 references for hopeless. This tells me God has a lot to say about hope.

But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24b-25

Hope for the Christian is not just wishful thinking. It's confident expectation. As Christians we have hope, or confident expectation, in things such as salvation through Christ (Eph. 4:4, Heb. 7:19), being with the Lord forever in future glory, Christ's 2^nd coming and the fulfillment of promises God has given us (like God's promise to Abraham for a son). Hope takes trust and faith in God.

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we can not see. Hebrews 11:1 NLT

So what does this have to do with me questioning God's love for me? I really felt that these were tied together. Then I realized, when I feel loved by God I have faith and trust in God which also brings hope. The three are tied together. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perserveres...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. I Corinthians 13:7,13 Our hope is based on God's love.

Recently my son was very unhappy because I gave him the choice between grapes or carrots for a snack and he wanted a popsicle or cookie. He had a snack but not what he wanted. The Lord showed me that I can be the same way and think that God doesn't love me that much because the answer to my prayer didn't look like I thought it would. Sometimes I don't even realize He answered my prayer because I was wanting a popsicle and God gave me carrots. I learned to open my eyes, stop limiting God and realize He loves me and knows what's in my best interest. If I don't open my eyes I may not see the beautiful miracles right before me.

Another time my four year old daughter was in tears because she got in trouble with her dad. I had to remind her that he still loves her but she needs to do what she's told. This made me think of when I mess up. I feel as if God loves me less but that's really not so. God loves me the same on good days and bad. He loves me the same this month as He did many years ago when He captivated my heart with His love and changed my life.

These simple lessons taught to me through my kids helped me remember God's unconditional, unchanging love for me. Then hope came flowing back over me. When I focus on the worries of life it chokes out hope and makes me unfruitful. I need to redirect my thinking back to things that are eternal. The things we see, the cares of our daily life are temporal. They are still important to God because He knows we need these things but they are temporal. To keep a proper perspective I need to focus a small amount of attention to things that are temporal and focus a large amount of attention to things that are eternal. That includes how much I think about them.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:18

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. Romans 15:13