The Ladder Of Hope Is Held From Above
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As Christians, there can sometimes be the assumption that if we are following the Lord, seeking His guidance, and obeying Him - that we won't have problems. I don't happen to see things that way. I'm fully aware that we live in a fallen world......there is sin and sickness around us. The enemy goes about like a "roaring lion" trying to cause problems. While God protects us from more things than we can possibly imagine, it doesn't mean we are immune to the fallen world around us.
When I was diagnosed with cancer - and not too long afterwards Floyd was struck down......God wonderfully helped me to keep my focus on Him. I knew we were where He had called us to be. I knew we were following Him in obedience. I knew we were in the centre of His will for our lives. In many ways because of things we had walked through, things we had learned through the years - we both felt we were in our "prime" in spite of our ages ticking upward. And then - wham! We were in a season where we had been taken out of commission in many ways - especially Floyd.
People have asked me - were you not where God wanted you to be? Did you have unconfessed sin? Was something wrong? I have to admit that I confessed every sin I could possibly think of......and then some. :) I asked God to search my heart. I sought Him for anything He might want to say to me.
Over and over again what I felt Him saying to me was - "keep your eyes on me.....trust me....continue to walk in my ways.....keep hope alive for my plans and purposes to be fulfilled in this season.....keep asking me for the impossible." I have endeavoured to do that to the best of my ability.
I have to say that, in spite of all the trials and hardships, it has been a precious season! I'm not sure I would willingly choose it - but I certainly can't regret it either. The closeness and intimacy with Him has been more precious than fame, or wealth, or a life of ease. I have nothing but gratitude in my heart to the Lord for His goodness and faithfulness these last few years.
In the time before we moved to South Africa - making such a massive change to "begin again" in a new land in our older years......we had this prophetic word spoken over us repeatedly: "the best is yet to come." In the natural if you look at things that have happened - it doesn't look like "the best." And yet in my heart, in my walk with Him, I have been living in the most wonderful years of intimacy with Him that I have ever experienced.
I can't speak for Floyd about this, of course - but I have to say that there have been many, many times when I've walked into His hospital room and I've felt like I was on holy ground. The presence of the Lord has been so real, so precious. I know God has met Floyd during this time in ways that I may never understand this side of heaven, but I'm sure it's been rich and precious.
Why am I sharing all this with you? I was emailing with a friend recently along these lines - and I felt prompted to share. And with it I've felt the Lord saying that - in the midst of all we're going through right now in this worldwide pandemic.....we need to keep our eyes on Him, look for His goodness, trust Him - and be very, very careful not to take up any offense against Him.
That's the phrase that has been echoing in my mind these last few days. "Don't take up offense again me." He never promised us a life without trials. In fact, He promises over and over in His Word to go with us through the trials - to never leave us or forsake us. But He didn't say it would always be easy.
To this day, as I'm typing this, God has helped me and protected me. I don't think I've taken up any offense against Him. May God help me not to do that in any way! He has been so faithful to help me day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. I couldn't have made it on my own - but He has never left me.
Whatever you are facing in this time of isolation, lockdown, quarantine, shelter-in-place season - may I encourage you to not blame God, to not take up any offense against Him. Through any sickness, any loss, any financial hardship, any difficulty - He is there to help us. He is good, faithful, trustworthy - and He has the "best" in mind for each of us. We are in His precious hands.
"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Corinthians 4:17
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3,4
"We glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Romans 5:3,4
"The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all." Psalm 34:19
I'm not some superwoman that's able to navigate this in any special way. I am weak, and needy, and totally dependent on the Lord. God has helped me with everything I've faced - and He will faithfully help you with whatever you are facing.
When we face trials, suffering, hard times - in order to grow in our intimacy with Him in the midst of them and not take up any offense against God - one of the things that I have found to be so important is to keep hope alive. "Without hope/vision, the people perish."
I've found that I can make choices to keep hope alive - but, ultimately, I need God's grace and strength and help. He has always helped me in my weakness to keep hope in my heart. In my lowest moments, in the times when life itself was draining from my body because of rigorous treatment for my cancer - I sensed God pouring hope into my heart. About 30 or so years ago, I read a phrase that has stuck with me. "The ladder of hope has nothing to stand on here below - it is held from up above." How incredibly true that is. Any and all hope we have is from our wonderful Father.
Hope can sound like a soft word - maybe even a bit weak sometimes. People sometimes say "I hope so" - without much strength of conviction! But hope is one of the strongest things we can have in our hearts. If you talk to people who have gone through hard times, they'll always mention that they had hope for better times. The strength of hope kept them going. In fact I think that one of the purposes of trials and sufferings is to produce hope in our hearts, not to diminish it or destroy it. In hard times, there is no middle ground. We press into God and come to a place of hope - or our hearts become hardened because of the trials.
Over the years I've found some key ingredients that I must have in my life in order to maintain hope.
· My hope must be rooted in who God is, in His character. As we spend time with Him, speak out our trust, worship Him, spend time in the Word.....then hope grows in our hearts. He's gone before us to prepare the way. He's never left us, never forsaken us, never changed. He's WITH us - continually. He's won over loneliness, despair, over every difficulty we may face. He's conquered death. He's victorious. Because of everything He is - we can have hope!
· I must have a heart of expectancy for hope to thrive in my heart. Faith believes that God can do something - hope expects that He will. They go hand-in-hand. Hope keeps us going in hard times because we expect a better time ahead. There are so many examples in the Bible of hopeless situations - where people kept hope alive, and God met them! If hopelessness enters into our hearts, thankfully it's not a terminal disease. God can help us cast it aside and start afresh with new hope, new expectancy.
· Hope is closely linked with prayer. It's in the place of prayer that hope can be rekindled. God can remove the unbelief from our hearts and help it to burn bright again as we spend time with Him.
· Hope needs to be coupled with joy. If we have the hope, the expectancy in our hearts for something - it will be a joyful expectancy. You don't think of hope as having a sad face. It's not flippant, it's not a false spirituality. It's real. It faces trials, but remains joyful in hope because of being grounded in God. We know He's sovereign. He's faithful. He doesn't go on strike or quit. He doesn't get weary. As we keep our focus on Him, as we worship Him - it's possible to have a joyful hope in the future.
· Hope needs patience. May I just state the obvious in saying this is the hard point!! There are delays in seeing our hope fulfilled. Setbacks come along. We get discouraged. We can so easily lose heart as it says in the Word. I've learned that my sense of timing in seeing a hope fulfilled is very, very different from the Lord's. I have to have patience with my hope. Patient hope doesn't give God a deadline. His timing is perfect. He knows what He's doing. We can trust Him.
· Along with patience, my hope must persevere and endure. In our day of "instant" everything, hope doesn't give up or give in. God uses the situations in our lives to teach us perseverance. He stretches us and grows us through each trial we face. I can look back over my life and see how God has done that.....and how He's strengthened my hope in each situation.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12
"Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." Romans 5:5
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13
"If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 8:25
"Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." Romans 12:12
"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31
I could go on for pages. The Bible says so much about hope!!
In the midst of the global pandemic we're facing, if there's anything we all need right now - it's HOPE! We must keep hope alive. It's rooted in who He is. It's expecting to see Him meet us in our lives. It's spending time in prayer with Him so that our hope grows. It's keeping a joyful spirit as we wait. It's being patient. It's persevering when times are hard.
And, most of all, it's remembering that God is always, always, always good and faithful! He is our hope.
"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26