When Life Feels Hope-Less
There I was, in bed on a weekend, with tears quietly streaming down my cheek and onto my pillow, gasping for air through the sniffles as I thought about all that I had been through in the last two weeks. I felt hopeless. I felt like I had lost hope in so much - lost hope in relationships, in friendships, in the future, in career opportunities, and in what, at that moment, felt like so much. My internal voice sounded like a whiny teenager, “Woe is me; life is the worst and my life is over.” I let myself sit in this emo-state for three days; but as I prayed, worshiped, and reflected through the tears, God spoke a peace over me.
My hope is not in things.
It is not in the idea of a successful career, of best friends, of marriage, or church. My hope is in Jesus. My hope is to be built on nothing less than Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. If you are struggling with having hope, I want to leave you with these few verses to hold onto while you push forward and persist - He’s in the waiting.
“I pray that God, the source of all hope, will infuse your lives with an abundance of joy and peace in the midst of your faith so that your hope will overflow through the power of the Holy Spirit.” - Romans 15:13
“And so, Lord, my only hope is in you.” - Psalm 39:7
“For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”- Jeremiah 29:11-13
Hope is not a strategy, but is the purpose and motivator of our strategy. Hope matters. Hope heals. I believe that we were brought on this early to live a life beyond our wildest imagination. He designed us to share and live life with others, and to offer them a sense of hope based on the experiences that we have been through. So, as hard as those three days of tears were, and as difficult as future days ahead may be, I know that God will use them and me and my experiences for his glory. To the non-believer, hope might seem like wishful thinking; but to the Christian believer, hope means a confident expectation - it is believing in the opportunity of change or difference.
Our hope is in Jesus and Jesus alone. We trust in Him and all that He is doing- we trust in the decisions we understand and even the ones we don’t understand at that moment.
“My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”