What Is Wrong With My Hope?

Is it possible that hope can be just as dangerous as not hoping? Last week on the blog we started a month of self-evaluation for 2019. We are at the end of the year and there are a few things that we have to look at.  This week I’d like to spend some time on the question “Where does our hope lie?” To do that, I would like to do more of a devotional as opposed to me sharing my thoughts.  When you hear the word “hope” what do you think about? The definition of hope is as follows: An expectation, a desire, an ambition for something. What is dangerous about expecting?  My friend and I were talking one day and I started encouraging him to start thinking about somethings they could hope for, for the future and they objected.  With respect they said, “Hope is dangerous.”  I knew that he meant, to hope means that you muster up energy to work towards something better than what you have.  Hoping in something (again) means sacrificing something like, time, energy, money and even reputation. To put some, maybe even all of that again on something that may not work.

Take the time to think of what you were hoping for in 2019. Has there ever been a time that you had great expectations for something and you ended your year empty handed? I know there were times where I began my year hopeful and ended it feeling hopeless.  For several years I was in deep debt because of Realestate fraud that my home was taken from me and soon my car was repossessed.  I trusted in people that had no business getting my trust and I paid for it.  There were times that I was not sure how I was going to give my small children dinner.  Our fridge was regularly empty, our phone was shut off time and time again, our electricity and heat was almost shut off but I was begging them to keep it on in the winter and if I didn’t have a newborn and a two year old, they would have cut it off.  Sam was doing the very best he could to provide for us but we could never get ahead of the game.

Almost every year I was hoping that this was the last year of living in poverty.  I prayed and believed that God would come to my rescue and pay everything off so that I could buy myself a pair of shoes because the ones I had were worn.  I wanted Joey to go in the fridge and have all that he needed.  I didn’t want the kids to always have to wear other’s hand-me-downs in order to have cloths.  That didn’t happen.

One day I was weeping on my bed and I had given up.  I was done.  I just started to give up on my hope for a better life because this was going to be my forever so I thought,  At that very moment a friend called me and said, “I felt like God told me to call you.  He said ‘Do not give up.  Keep hoping in him.'”  There was more of a weight to keep believing then to just give up.   I want us to really chew on scripture today so let’s start. Turn to Romans 5:1-5,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  …we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

When I came across this verse almost 21 years ago, I was stricken with the words, “Hope does not put us to shame.” How can that be true when I have hoped for much but came to the end of my year and received nothing? I was tired of having great expectations and not receiving what I so wanted. So let’s look at these verses to see where I was going wrong and maybe how you maybe going wrong as well; and keep from making those mistakes. In these verses we find 5 key ingredients to have hope that doesn’t leave us ashamed and embarrassed.

1. Rejoice in our suffering. Marsha you are crazy!! Do you know what I’ve gone through? Do you know where I have been? Do you know what I’ve lost? How can God actually ask me to “rejoice”, be glad, even have joy in my suffering? Marsha I’m tired and you want me to rejoice? My answer is “yes” because guess what…

“This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

My friend, joy is a weapon to be wielded in a season of suffering because when you learn to rejoice, it will give you the strength to endure a season of waiting. Sadly, that’s why people struggle the most in their time of suffering. These articles are not being read by people who are crying about petty, meaningless issues. I am not here to mentor wimpy, whiny babies who feel like it’s unfair that they didn’t get promoted or they’re upset because their kid didn’t get invited to the latest birthday party. I’m talking to people who have faced serious moments when they didn’t think they were going to make it. I’m talking to people who need hope to stay alive one more day and push to the next level. God needs you to find the strength to find joy in Him.

God Keeps His Promises

2. Suffering is the one thing Jesus promised we would have. Did you know that?  (I know this doesn’t sound like it’s getting any better but stay with me.). God never promised perfect health, whole hearts, big bank accounts, the salvation of every single loved one, or even good fortune at every corner. He promised us that we will all suffer at some point of our lives. I am not saying we are to seek suffering or curse a life of pure prosperity either — let’s not get crazy. But I’m saying that when we are in a time of suffering that we did nothing to warrant it, we have to trust God for His provisions through that time.

Every spring I know that summer is coming because when I go to different places in my neighborhood there is a stench of manure dumped on new plants. Plants need soil, water, sunlight, and to really strengthen them the gardener will use… fertilizer, poop. Do you feel like someone pooped on you?   Do you feel like everything around you is poop?  Well you probably have been pooped on because you know that this season stinks. God is going to take that and strengthen you if you’ll put your hope in him. God allows suffering for one reason… suffering produces endurance.

3. Endurance is the stuff that makes a soldier hard to beat. You can be strong, you can be smart, talented, skilled in many things but if you do not have any endurance the enemy can and will wear you down. Look at what 2 Timothy 2:3,

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. ⁴ No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

I have said this before and it’s worth saying again, Through the Winters Ministry is not here to raise more victims. It’s easy to take on the victim mentality but it takes a strong person to go from a victim to a victor. God is calling us to endure the suffering like a good soldier. I think I said it before that I love the recent Captain America Movies. My favorite scene is before Captain America becomes this superhero. I love it when he is just a short, skinny, weak Steve Rogers. Before he becomes a superhero physically, he was a superhero at heart. He fought bullies and refused to run away. He stood up for others and was willing to put himself on the line for his fellow soldiers. He was laughed at, ridiculed and underestimated because of his size, but he endured because he knew he was made for more. My fellow soldier, yes, you may have gone through times of hurt, pain, ridicule, bullying, manipulation… but God is asking you to endure because guess what…

Hope Makes Me The Perfect Soldier

4. This endurance produces character. This character in you, no talent or skill can produce on it’s own. You see, skills and talent may get you to a certain point in life, but it’s your character that will keep you there. When we gave our hearts to God we were broken individuals that learned some really bad ways of getting through. We trusted in ourselves. We picked up so many bad habits that God takes our endurance (which may have started off as stubbornness) as a chance to create some new character in us that voids out behaviors we started off with. We may have started off selfish, but we become more God-centered. We start off self-centered and we become more love-centered. We may come into our season with bitterness but leave with a larger understanding of God’s mercy.

5. Lastly, rejoicing in God keeps us from tapping out.  When we learn to find strength to rejoice in our suffering, we become a stronger soldier who refuses to give up on God. We trust him to make us more in his image by helping us build God centered character which gives us hope…the kind of hope that won’t make us ashamed. We have to take our hope out of the trash and allow God to give us the kind of hope that will never fail us. Not the kind of hope that keeps us depending on things that will fail us. Hope that will show us what kind of amazing God we are serving!

The day that friend called me, I took a deep breath, wiped the tears out of my eyes and knew that I had my eyes on the wrong things. I tightened my belt, and allowed God to show me where my hope needed to be centered in.  God showed me many areas I needed to change in order to get out of the hole I was in.  Today I am not where I was.  My fridge shelves have broken under the weight of the amount of food God has blessed my family with.  It did not happen over night but as I continued to hope in God I saw glimmers of hope every single day.

Have you trashed your hope because you feel it hasn’t gotten you anywhere? Well, take the time to think about where your hope lies. Do you see hope the same way God does? There are only a few weeks left in this year. Take your hope out of the trash, start afresh and a new. If you need any help, please email me at thruthewinters@gmail.com, if you are not comfortable commenting below.  We love hearing from our readers.