HOPE IS NOT A FEELING!

 We've all heard the sayings:  "Keep A Stiff Upper Lip", "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn",  "Behind Every Cloud Is A Silver Lining" "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" and  "Look For The Bright Side Of Life".  Okay, so perhaps those last two were songs, but you get the road I am traveling on today.

Some things are just hard in this life and telling yourself that you can  "pull yourself up by your boot straps" sometimes just doesn't cut it!  This week I heard that one of the women who attended my bible study is losing her battle with cancer.  It sounds like it won't be long until she is trading her physical home for her eternal home.  It is a hard life that we live down here!   What about last week when we witnessed on TV the devastation of the earthquake in Nepal?  All the happy and good thoughts fly out the window in that light.   There can be no silver lining to cancer, for even if the sun does come up tomorrow, things will never be the same!  Where is the positive thinking behind thousands of people losing their lives under immense rubble? Where is the "bright side" to that? Serious thoughts I am having this week, huh?   But you know, King Solomon, had some of those same thoughts so I am in good company.  He wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." (Ecc. 2:11, NIV).  I just love that the writers of scripture were human just like us with real human emotions.  For in reality what Solomon said is true and this does convey our life on this earth.

I admit that as a kid, I counted on most of the above cutesy sayings to help me get by.  I had several surgeries as a result of polio and I reminded myself each time, that things would get better and I could make it through all the pain and gain the will to learn to walk again .  But now, as an adult Christian, and one who believes in the promises and truths of scripture, I find the source of all my comfort comes from this glorious book that God has written to us.

So today I find myself needing comfort in its timeless pages and hopefully if you do as well, we can glean together from it.  For what we need in this crazy mixed up world is HOPE!

HOPE is not seen.  "For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:24-23  Paul tells the Roman Christian's right before this verse, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."  Rom. 8:18  Paul suffered from beatings, imprisonment, riots, sleepless nights, hunger, and in the end his life.  (II Cor. 6:4-5)  But he never lost HOPE.   Neither should we, for we can be assured that the one in whom we have placed our HOPE, will be revealed to all of us one day!

HOPE produces the characteristics of Christ in us.  "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly."  Romans 5:3-6, NIV  Christ died so that we might HOPE not of a temporal life on this earth but of an eternal life forever with Him!  And as this verse indicates He did not leave us hopeless on this earth. He sent the great comforter to come along side us. Suddenly I want to shout Hallelujah!!  Thank you God!

HOPE can and will remain.  In I Corinthians 13 "The Love Chapter" we tend to look over the other two components that will remain in this Christian life.  "And these three remain; faith, HOPE, and love.  But the greatest of these is love." I Cor. 13:13, NIV.  When the valley we are traveling through is at its darkest, when things look the bleakest, we don't just need the "light at the end of the tunnel" we need God traveling right there beside us through it all.  "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."  Psalm 23:4.  He never leaves us, for His HOPE remains!

There are are many other scriptures that have to do with hope and so this brings me to my mentoring challenge today:  If you need to refresh or remind yourself of these truths of hope, please go to www.bible.com.  Select read, type in the version you prefer to study and in the search line type the word HOPE to begin studying for yourself.  We don't have to despair, we don't have to wonder, we don't need to feel alone because He is the God of All HOPE!