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Despairing of Hope, or Living With It

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But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came. Job 30:26

I wonder if you’ve ever felt the heavy weight of our opening scripture.

Perhaps you allowed your heart to hope for good—believed God for something good—but the good you hoped for didn’t appear. Instead evil leered at you, taunting you with a darkness that overwhelmed.

And you were tempted to disbelieve John 1:5.

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I faced that temptation last week, beloved. Pain has a way of casting a shadow that seems impossible to escape. Especially pain evoked from loss.

And I recently lost someone I love to glory. The frail tent of my dear aunt’s body gave way to the cancer she battled. Now my mother grieves the loss of her beloved sister while facing another three months of chemo herself. Chemo she didn’t anticipate. Her doctors and faithful prayer had projected remission.

It didn’t come.

Now faith is tested while hope dwindles. Darkness approaches, proclaiming a message of hopelessness, sucking away life like a vacuum. Only the emptiness isn’t a void. Fear fills it. Unimaginable pain. Sorrow. Despair.

We so easily allow the darkness to rob our hope, beloved.

But what if we refuse to let the darkness win? What if we recognize that we are the light that overcomes darkness? What if we choose to believe what God says despite what circumstances declare?

I know my God, dear one, and I know His goodness. He is incorruptible. Perfect. Kind. And He always keeps His Word. Always.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

It seems impossible to believe. Can God really bring a great good from death and suffering?

Yes, beloved. Just look at Jesus. What appeared to be humanity’s darkest hour became its brightest. Jesus’ suffering unleashed life and blessing that still produces a harvest.

And now He challenges us to follow His example.

But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:13

Glory looms on the horizon for the heart infused with faith. And hope for a future joy that waits beyond the darkness.

Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. Psalm 119:49-50

Life flows into the hearts of the afflicted when we choose to believe God’s promises. I am living proof of the miracle faith produces when we yield our hearts to the will of our good, good Father. My heart hurts for the people I love. But I do not despair. Hope in my Father’s Word engulfs my heart with peace. It beats with purpose, anticipating a harvest we cannot yet conceive.

Joy released through suffering.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

Beloved, God loves us too much to allow us to live lacking. He wants us perfect and complete, and He will do whatever it requires. He gave His Son to remove our lack. Will we also trust Him by surrendering our loved ones?

The Holy Spirit recently gripped my heart with Jesus’ words in Mark 10:29-30.

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

What are you willing to leave for Jesus’ sake, beloved? Will you relinquish your suffering loved ones? Will you entrust them to God’s will, feeling the sorrow but releasing all bitterness?

No one who has surrendered a loved one for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the gospel will fail to receive a hundredfold blessing, now in this time. This isn’t just about heavenly crowns. It represents an earthly harvest. But the fulfillment of that blessing will be released through persecutions. Pain. Suffering. Loss.

And faith.

What is that harvest worth to you, beloved?

Surrender your heart to your Father’s will. Find hope as you believe His Word. And experience His resurrection life.

You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, “It is hopeless”; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint. Isaiah 57:10

I believe, Lord Jesus. Bring life.

The Power of Ingratitude

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“By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.”  Exodus 13:21

Did you ever notice how God becomes just what we need from Him in any given moment?

Perhaps you haven’t noticed. Maybe, like the Israelites, you reap the benefit of His presence without ever giving it much thought. They were often so preoccupied by what they lacked, they didn’t appreciate what they were given. Instead of thanking God for His rich provision, they grumbled.

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:2-3

Really? They spent their time in Egypt sitting around pots of meat? Isn’t it amazing how quickly the human mind forgets and distorts. Perhaps you’d like to see what caused God to send Moses to get them out of Egypt in the first place.

The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. Exodus 2:23-25

God added these words when He called Moses from the burning bush.

The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering . . . I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.” Exodus 3:7,9

The memory of their groaning in backbreaking slavery quickly faded to illusions of grand feasts. Why? They were hungry. A desire of their flesh rose up and wasn’t satisfied, and that one thing became the entire focus of their thoughts. They forgot the extent of their suffering, as well as God’s miraculous displays of power on their behalf. And their momentary hunger made them twist His intentions. They threw God’s plan to rescue them back in His face, claiming He meant them harm.

Ever been there? That’s the nature of the unredeemed heart, dear one. It deceives. No wonder Jeremiah 17:9 states,

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

And that deceitful heart left unchecked brings bitterness to the soul.

Perhaps this is why scripture continually points the people of God toward gratitude. Gratitude shifts our gaze and changes the direction of our thinking. Instead of emptying the soul by dwelling on what we lack, it fills it by celebrating what we possess.

Sadly, few consistently choose the path of gratitude. Our own hunger for things we desire clouds our view and overshadows our many blessings. And that’s dangerous. Scripture teaches that refusing to acknowledge God with thanksgiving leads to futile thinking and a hard, dark heart.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21-22

Ingratitude made the Israelites fools—fools that desired to run right back to the oppressive captivity they had cried out for deliverance from. Amazing.

Before we start casting stones at the house of Israel, it might be wise to shift our gaze to the nearest mirror. Is your heart content in the journey God has you on, dear one? Do your lips offer praise for the Light that marks your path, or are you preoccupied with an area that remains in shadow? Are you hungering for something so ferociously that all that God has already poured into your life feels empty?

God wants to see your heart at peace, beloved. He longs to satisfy your soul with a contentedness only He can bring. You see, dear one, only God Himself can satisfy.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14

Do you want a little joy and gladness that carries you all your days? It comes as the result of a choice. Choose to look at what God has done, not what He has yet to do. Offer Him praise and gratitude. You may just find that you encounter God Himself.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

Praise and gratitude usher us into the presence and power of God. Thanksgiving allows us to enter His gates. Praise carries us into His court. And when we encounter Him, we discover just what we needed. Emptiness fades. Our hearts fill with His very presence.

And we are satisfied.

Rising to Life

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Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” John 11:25

I had a good cry with Jesus this morning. A prayer journal I’ve been working through brought me to the streets of Jerusalem to witness His trial and execution. The scene did not evoke peace or comfort. The crowd grew ugly, crying out for blood.

The guards gladly gave it, pounding Jesus with fists and lashes, their mocking lips curled in treacherous smiles as they hailed Him “King of the Jews” and repeatedly beat a crown of thorns into His head. They spit on Him and mocked Him, then made Him carry His own cross, stumbling half dead through the streets to Golgotha. There, they hammered nails into His wrists and ankles, hanging Him between two thieves on splintered beams of wood.

I can barely stand the thought of it. My heart breaks for my Lord and friend when I think of what He suffered. I cannot imagine the searing rejection He felt, the pain He endured. If anyone ever had reason to rage against injustice, it was Jesus. He was innocent, undeserving; yet He suffered unspeakable pain. And at the hands of those He professed to love, many who only the week before had worshiped Him.

Yes, if ever anyone had reason to hold a grudge, it was Jesus. But He didn’t. Instead, He hung gasping for breath, ignored their insults, and uttered the impossible.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

Unbelievable. The torture wasn’t even over. No one had apologized. In fact, they were still hurling insults at Him. His circumstances hadn’t changed. The people had not repented. Yet Jesus chose—in the midst of His pain—to release forgiveness.

It makes no sense to us. In fact, it’s almost unthinkable. It goes against every thread of instinct woven into our human nature. But that’s the point, actually. Our human nature rings synonymous with our fallen nature, and left unchecked it will destroy us.

Dear one, the part of you that rails against how unfair your circumstances seem—that screams you deserve better and schemes for retribution—that part of you has spent its life enslaved to sin and will always incite you to respond in ways that bring about death.

For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. Romans 7:5

Beloved, no good ever comes from following our “natural” instincts, because what feels natural to us comes from our life-long bondage to sin. Whenever we allow our old nature to guide our actions, death of some kind eventually results. Every time. And when we hold a grudge, it won’t be the one we harbor anger toward that experiences that death. No, our bitterness brings death to our own souls.

If you think about it, you’ll probably find you know that to be true. You’ve likely tasted the poison of bitterness and felt its effects.

Have you ever had an “enemy” so preoccupy your thoughts that you can hardly think about anything else? Anger overshadows every other emotion until it’s hard to imagine being capable of another feeling. Unrest steals your peace; anxiety consumes your joy. The very mention of your offender sets your heart racing and your blood boiling. Ugly thoughts linger. And most of the time, you just feel miserable.

Do you see it, dear one? Death. Is this what we fight to protect by refusing to forgive?

The perfect Son of God made a different choice as He hung from His cross. Why? Because Jesus, unbound by our destructive sin nature, knew that forgiveness was the only way to keep Himself free.

Jesus didn’t only offer forgiveness as a grand act of mercy toward humanity. Jesus had to forgive, dear one. Accepting that sin into His heart would’ve thwarted everything He had come to accomplish.

Think about it. What made Jesus able to conquer death and rise from the grave? He defeated sin and its resulting death by remaining the perfect, sinless, spotless Lamb. If Jesus had allowed bitterness to take root in His heart, even He would’ve missed experiencing the glory of resurrection.

Forgiveness had to take place, beloved, or Jesus would have remained in the grave. Bitterness would have kept our Savior from rising to life.

The same rings true for you, dear one. The power to rise from the dead lies within your own heart. You can trust your old nature and hold onto the resentment you have every right to carry. Or, like Jesus, you can choose to believe that resurrection life lies on the other side of forgiveness.

You may even experience the same miracle Jesus did. He didn’t just rise to glory; the grace that forgiveness unleashed brought about a direct change in His circumstances.

Just look at the thief that hung beside Him. He began that torturous day among Jesus’ accusers.  Matthew 27:44 records, “In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.”

Amazingly, one of the thieves suddenly switched sides after Jesus’ famous, pardoning words. Luke 23:39-41 records the abrupt change.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Jesus’ forgiveness released the power of grace to transform that thief’s hardened heart. In a powerful moment, Jesus’ opposition became His friend; His enemy became His ally. Transformation occurred because the faith expressed through forgiveness released God to move. And both Jesus and His accuser rose to new life.

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43

Beloved, your faith expressed through obedience opens the door to release God’s grace. Why not give forgiveness a try? You may just see your enemy become your ally.

“Everything is possible for one who believes.”  Mark 9:23