The Courage to Hope
When I think about all that has surfaced personally and globally during the coronavirus, my heart aches for a solution. An answer. A hope. It sounds like the right answer to give, but can we pause for a moment and be honest about how hard it is to have hope in our world right now? Hope is a vulnerable place. When I hope in something, I am aware of both my present condition and am daring to believe in a condition I cannot see. Our world’s condition today challenges our faith and dares us not to hope. God is asking us to look for something past what is seen, into the unseen. That is how the author of Hebrews described faith: “…being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). God is not oblivious to what our hope costs us. That is why He provided us with King David’s tested response in Psalm 31 so we wouldn’t feel alone in our circumstances.
Be brave. Be strong.
The verb here is a determination and persistence in the midst of the battle we are facing. God is not hiding the fact that we would face circumstances that would tempt us to want to run and hide. King David wrote this Psalm so that we would remind our spirit, soul, and body that God already knew about a time in our life that we would struggle… He prepared a response for us to declare! Every moment that we choose to bravely march through the waters of this battle, God adds strength to our heart.
Don’t give up.
Every day is a choice… and in quarantine, it feels like I’m having to remind myself that every hour is a choice. As we dare to step out and believe in God in this time of uncertainty, He dares to show up as well. God does not remove the choice for us to be afraid, to be angry, or to turn to other sources during this time. Choice is our personal sacrifice that we are able to lay on the altar of this battle. God knows it is can be hard to choose to believe in something you cannot see, but He is begging us not to give up.
Expect God to get here soon.
Expectations form the container for God to fill. Like a pregnant woman, our hope builds an expectancy within us that will co-create something with God on this earth. God is building something inside each of us, creating with us, as we expectantly wait. Maybe it is the container that our expectancy builds that will make room on this earth for God’s solutions to fill.
We would not need hope if we could see the solution in front of us (Romans 8:24). Maybe the solutions we are seeking are actually within each of us coming together collectively instead of just one of us figuring it out all alone. What if our collective hope in God could build a container large enough for Him to move on this earth?
A few questions to ask yourself in this season…
1. What emotions, thoughts, and sources will I have to combat in order to be brave?
2. What part of my heart do I need the Lord to strengthen – my emotions, my thoughts, my passions?
3. What are the choices I do have control over in my day?
4. In what areas do I need to enlarge my expectancy for God to speak?
GUIDING TRUTHS
