hope and humbling

God has been shaking my confidence lately. When God shakes your confidence, it's a frightening thing, but you come out just... better. I believe this is called "humbling". 

There are really hard things in all of our lives, and there are some really hard things in mine. I have wishes and hopes and dreams for the people around me, but I'm forced to stand by and watch as they suffer and dig themselves deeper and deeper in sin and pain. I pray for them, I try to pray with faith. I try not to be like the man in James 1, who was a double-minded unstable doubter, like a wave driven and tossed by the wind, yet that is exactly how I feel sometimes, well, most of the time. I always fear that my prayers won't be answered in the way I want them to be. We talk about praying for God's will, but I think our secret fear is that His will won't align with ours.

I was thinking about hope, and how hard it is to have hope for other people. It seems like so much of what happens in our lives is directly dependent on our own behaviour. We live in a world of sin and consequence, of work and reward, of reaping and sowing. My hopes for other people are dependent on them, that they will turn away from their sin and turn to God. My hopes for myself are based on my own self-discipline and obedience to God. The problem is, these hopes aren't fail-proof. I want something I can hope in with confidence, really believing it's going to come to pass.

I think sometimes we think of hope as being more along the lines of wishful thinking. Yet that's not the definition of hope. Webster's says it is "to desire with expectation of obtainment" or "to expect with confidence". This certainly doesn't suggest a passive wish or fancy. The bible doesn't suggest that either. 

As I was struggling and trying to figure out how to hope in faith for God to answer my prayers, I felt Him saying to me. "I have given you an everlasting hope."

Romans 8:23-25

New King James Version (NKJV)

²³ Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

This speaks of a hope in an assured future, waiting knowing that it will happen, knowing your perseverance won't be in vain.

I realized that He is the only One worth putting any hope in at all. The words of Chris Tomlin's song "Jesus Messiah" rang in my head. "All our hope is in You. All our hope is in You" I wondered to myself, what would my life look like if I put all my hope in God? 

If I put all of my hope in the assurance of my salvation, then I would have hope that never fails. If I put all my hope in the promises of God's Word, then I would have hope that never fails.

 It takes so much trust, though, trust that God is bigger, greater, wiser, and infinitely more loving than I could ever be. If I put all my hope in that, in the promises that He makes, wouldn't I be able to live in perfect peace?

I wrote in my journal.

"If all of my hopes are placed in God, how can they ever fail? I need to fixate myself on eternal dreams, dreams that are so caught up in God that they are prophetic."

I like the word "prophetic". It means predictive, foretelling events that will happen. I believe the promises in God's Word, so I can I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will come true. How awesome is it that we can have hopes and dreams that we know will be fulfilled? If our dreams are caught up in Him, in the assurance of His Word.

So I will cling to those promises, that He will never leave me, that He desires that all should come to Him, that He will save those who turn to Him, that His justice will prevail (that's a hard one), and that His plan is better.

Personally, I think that's better than any old wishing star.