Feeling Discouraged? There's HOPE Ahead

 

Life is full of challenges. Busy, broke or barely living, you see overwhelmed and errand-weary people every day. Perhaps you are one of them.  

Whether you’re coping with sudden trauma or dealing with the frustrations of everyday life, you know too well the realities of disappointment, uncertainty, longing or lack.  

Maybe you’re stressed from trying to balance work and home life. Or you’ve been unemployed for months and the stack of unpaid bills is piling higher than snow in the Rockies. Could it be that someone you love has left you, or passed on, and you haven’t a clue how life will ever work again? Maybe you’re in desperate need and there never seems to be enough, enough money, enough love, enough time, and you’re simply tired of it.  

Everyone faces hardship in life. How do you deal with it? When tough times get you down, how do you cope? 

Focused solely on our circumstances our view becomes myopic; we see only part of the picture. For example, if you took a photograph of a desert landscape, all you’d see in the four-by-six inch photo would be your perspective from one viewpoint: some sand, cactus and a bit of tumbleweed blowing in the distance.  

But the picture doesn’t tell the whole story. What you couldn’t see beyond the edges of your snapshot was an oasis just ahead, or the desert’s end.  

There’s more to the landscape, and more to your life. 

Beyond the snapshot in your mind of how you feel at this moment, beyond your discouragement or desperation, there is more.  

There is hope ahead.  

You can have hope in hard times—in all times—when you know more fully the One in whom we put our hope. Jesus Christ, is our Wild Hope. He is “wild” in the sense that He is passionate and powerful—adoring and authoritative—yet often unpredictable. Hope that is wild is extravagant; it is beyond your wildest dreams. 

Isaiah 55:8 reminds us, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.”  

While His ways are often surprising, Jesus Christ acts out of ultimate love.  

When you pray, when you talk to God in a natural conversation, things begin to change. Perhaps suddenly or maybe later on, but things always change. And when you pray, you can find greater peace, restored hope, and more freedom.  

Wild hope is a hope so unexpected yet so wonderfully good, that when you begin to grasp it your life just may be transformed into one of startling kindness, lavish love, and limitless possibilities.  

The economy may fluctuate, your bank balance may rise and fall, and your emotions may ebb and flow like the ocean tide, but one thing is true: the word of the Lord stands forever. God keeps His promises. He will take care of you.  

He is totally reliable, willing and able to meet your needs more than you can ever imagine—wildly more, extravagantly more.

 

Excerpted from Powerful Prayers for Challenging Times (Revell/Baker) by Jackie M. Johnson