It Might Be Time to Move
What do you do if you are struggling to have hope?
Verse of the Day
‘I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.’
Today’s Devotional
Imagine that you live in a village that is beside a small stream of water. If you know anything about how villages, towns and cities were originally located, it has a lot to do with a water source. This small village where you live is struggling because the stream’s water is no longer clear. There are villages further upstream that are polluting the water. Other villages upstream are damming up the water, blocking the flow from what it once was to a small trickle of water. All of this results in a troubling set of circumstances for your small village. Because water is needed to survive.
At this point, you have a few choices. One option is to complain about the miserable situation you are in. Resentment and self-pity abound in this scenario. The battle cry of this choice is, “Woe is me.” The next option is to make the trek upstream to the villages that are causing your village to suffer and explain how their actions are causing difficulty for you, asking them to make some changes. While this choice seems to make the most sense, it is dependent on the cooperation of others. It requires other people to change their habitual behavior for your benefit and well-being. It might work, it might not. It’s always worth a try. The battle cry of this choice is, “Please help me, humans!” There is one more choice, and it is the most cumbersome and requires the most effort. It requires packing up all that you call “home” and moving upstream. Closer to the source. If clean water is what you want and need, then you must go to the source of clean water.
Here’s what I know about my life: I need hope to survive. Today’s verse tells me that God is the source of that hope. I propose to you that the hope that some of us are using to survive is polluted by this world and blocked from the free flowing source that is God Himself. If that is the case, I need to be willing to make the effort to move myself closer to the Source. No one is saying that this will be easy or without much effort and hard work. It all depends on what we really want and need to survive.
But here’s what happens if we move ourselves close to the Source. We are filled. We are filled to the point of overflowing. And not just with hope. We are filled with joy and peace. But notice the disclaimer in this verse, we are filled with joy and peace “because we trust in him”. As I struggle with whether or not I actually trust God in any particular situation, I need to remind myself that trusting God is a choice. Joy and peace are the fruit of that trust.
We have been looking at hope for only a few days, mainly because I have struggled with knowing the difference between hope and trust and faith. But for good measure let’s review.
-God is the source of hope.
-We can receive hope from the teachings, endurance and encouragement in the Bible.
-I can have hope for today as I invite God to lead and as I remember that God can use my current difficulties for His glory and my good.
-The hope I have is a living hope, and needs to be cared for like any other living thing.
-I can have hope as I look at God’s track record in my life.
-We can become confident in the hopes of our faith as we experience them and give God the credit that is due Him.
-I need to rejoice in the hope that I have in God.
As we each make the effort to move closer to God, the source of our hope, our hope becomes confident. It is not easily shaken by the circumstances we face. We begin to have confident hope in God. That’s the kind of hope I need. That’s the kind of hope I want to overflow from my life. That means I need to go to the Source and make my home there.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
What do you need to do today to move closer to God, the source of hope?
How can you allow God to fill you with love, joy and peace?
What can you do today to share the blessings you have received from God?
How much do you trust God as the source of all the good things in your life?