Tag Archives: hope

Our God is With Us

We Are Loved

Years ago, back when we had to watch television without fast-forwarding through the commercials, there was an ad where people would tell about various hardships they were going through (job loss, health issues etc) and they’d always end with a big grin and “But I’m loved!”

I don’t remember if it was sponsored by a Christian group or by another religious organization, but my reaction was a sarcastic “yeah, right—that makes everything okay, then”.

These were painful struggles, but the glowing smiles implied happiness and laughter, puppies and flowers, all’s right in the world.

Sometimes life hurts. A lot. Denying the pain makes it worse, and that’s what I sensed in the ads: denial.

Yet, we are loved. And that assurance means more to me each year, each speedbump that rocks my life or those of my friends. The heavier the burden, the more we need to rely on God’s loving, strengthening grace.

Nothing can separate us from His love. If everything crumbles around us, if the very worst happens, He’ll still be there to sustain us. And somehow He’ll make something beautiful, even if it can only be seen from the far side of eternity.

When fear or discouragement jab me these days, I’ve surprised myself by retorting “But I’m loved”.

It doesn’t numb me or give me a sappy grin, but it resonates in my spirit. It stirs my confidence in the God I’m learning to trust, the God who promised never to leave nor forsake me.

Maybe it’s because I’m learning that His staying has nothing to do with me and everything to do with His character. I can’t earn His love. It was never about that.

He loves me because He formed me. He gave His own Son to save me. He sent His Spirit to live in me. And He never goes back on His word.

Because of who He is, I can say, whatever my circumstances, through smiles or through tears, “I am loved.”

And I will trust Him.

The Goodness of the Lord

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I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 27:13-14, NIV*

This verse gave me a lot of comfort during a hard time. I don’t know the translation a friend sent to me, but the wording for verse 13 is “I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (It’s similar to the NASB translation of Psalm 27:13)

I clung to that promise, repeated it over and over, and although that crisis has passed the words are still on my fridge. Things were bad, and I needed help believing there would be good days ahead.

The verse has been going through my head again this week, in the form of a song by Carolyn Arends, “Land of the Living”. Just the chorus:

I would despair
If I did not believe
That I would see again
Your hand in the land of the living.

And I saw something deeper: the promise doesn’t say anything about what this goodness will look like. Doesn’t say the pain will go away, health or wealth be restored, wars and natural disasters cease.

What it says is that we will see the goodness of the Lord.

See the goodness of the Lord.

One of the points I took from Ann Voskamp’s amazing book, One Thousand Gifts, is that sometimes God’s goodness—the grace He gives us—is hard to recognize. It comes disguised as what we call more bad news or hard times.

She also points the way to see it: “praise precedes the miracle”. As we pray, praising God for who He is, asserting our confidence in Him, He helps us recognize His hand even in the hard experiences.

If the circumstances don’t change, or while we’re waiting for the change, don’t we need to recognize—to see—the goodness of the Lord present with us? Don’t we need His goodness to get us through? That’s grace.

Father God, Giver of all good gifts, open our eyes and our spirits to see Your goodness here with us, in the land of the living. We will still pray in trust that You will deliver us from our hard places and heal our hurts, but in the here and the now, help us praise You. Praise You with no strings attached: not if You work things out a certain way, but because of who You are. And we will remember that the praise does precede the miracle, whatever that miracle will turn out to be.

∞

I couldn’t find “Land of the Living” as an audio file, so here’s a video of my first favourite Carolyn Arends song: “Seize the Day.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lmqtYR5tJo&feature=fvsr

Perspective and Gratitude

Sustained

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The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Hebrews 1:3a, NIV*

“Sustaining all things by His powerful word.”

I don’t know about you, but to me the world seems a little out of control. Natural disasters are more frequent and widespread, society’s morals keep sliding, sickness and anxiety thrive. Of course, it doesn’t help that I finished 2010 by reading the book of Revelation.

Today’s verse is from the beginning of Hebrews, and later in the same chapter we read about the heavens and the earth perishing. The writer ends that passage by reaffirming that God does not change.

God the Father won’t grow weak or fail. Jesus the Son will sustain all things. The Holy Spirit will never leave us.

I take comfort in that. The world may be a scary place, and material things will wear out, break and decay, but I can trust the God who made the universe to sustain what matters to Him… and that includes us.

Mighty God, we can depend on You to sustain us. Give us the grace and faith we need to keep our confidence firmly fixed in You, who alone are worthy. Because of who You are, we can rest in hope.

∞

This version of the newsboys’ “Lord, I Don’t Know” doesn’t show the lyrics, but the images are really effective.

Hope is Born

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For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6, NIV*

Jesus left the glory of heaven to be born as a human child and began the fulfillment of God’s redemption promise from Genesis.

Imagine… setting aside His rightful glory as God, submitting to the indignity of birth and infancy, to human frailty, rustic conditions and death… to redeem us. Not because He had to, but because He chose to out of love.

The world is still dark and painful. My personal prayers these days share the burden of four individuals needing work, two more grieving through the first Christmas without their husbands, one treading turbulent waters and one who needs the wholeness Jesus brings.

But if we’re open, He does bring wholeness. Hope.

We don’t have to drown in despair. Circumstances don’t get any less painful, but He came to be God with us. We don’t have to do this alone.

Somehow His grace gives us strength, His wisdom leads us, His love in our hearts warms us.

Because we trust Him, we can say “though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil…”

Christmas is a hard time for people who are hurting, because the world puts on its happy mask and avoids them. But Jesus’ birth affirms the pain. That’s why He came.

I like how Charles Dickens put it in A Christmas Carol when Bob Cratchit describes his fragile son, Tiny Tim:

“Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” [You can read A Christmas Carol online at Literature.org. This quote comes from chapter 3.]

Father, how can we help but love and praise You for reaching into our mess to bring hope and healing? This Christmas season, may we celebrate Your greatest gift, may Your love flow through us to those we touch, and may the world in its turmoil somehow pause to receive its King. Thank You that someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess Him as Lord. Until then, have mercy on us all.

∞

This week’s song is “Celebrate the Child,” by Michael Card. Let’s celebrate indeed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Iz2U1dgm0

Pain and Joy

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Now a man named Lazarus was sick….When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
John 11:1a, 4-6 NIV*

Jesus didn’t even have to go see Lazarus to heal him, he could have just said the word. Instead He waited until Lazarus was dead before starting out.

He loved this family. Their home seems to be one of the few genuinely safe places where He could visit without loaded questions and malice.

Loving them, knowing their faith and character and that they could pass this test, He let Lazarus the provider die.

Because there was something bigger at stake.

This was “for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (v. 4)

And as much as this was clearly about God, it wasn’t for God’s benefit. He wasn’t on an ego trip.

It was for the people, the believers. Jesus told His disciples in verse 15, “…for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”

Not for God’s sake that they could believe, but for theirs. God already knew who He is.

Jesus wept and was deeply moved by the sisters’ grief. Probably more so because He knew He could have prevented it. Given that He’d already been speaking about laying down His own life, it wasn’t a case of letting someone else pay a price He wasn’t prepared to double.

The people needed to know Him better, and joy was on its way. But that didn’t negate the pain.

Sustaining and compassionate God, help us remember in our tears that You feel our pain. Help us rely on You in faith, trusting although we don’t understand. Reveal Yourself to us, not for Your benefit but for ours, so that we can trust You more.

∞

There are plenty of good songs about trusting God in the pain. Today I chose David Crowder*Band’s “Shadows”.

Light For a Lifetime

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When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’
John 8:12, NIV*

Jesus’ light before us,
Jesus’ light behind us,
Jesus’ light above us,
Jesus’ light beneath us,
Jesus’ light beside us,
Jesus’ light in us.
The light of life in us,
The light of the world in us.

The way may get dark, and it probably will, but this promise tells me that if I’m walking with Jesus, trusting and obeying Him, I won’t become “darkened in my understanding” and I won’t bang into things or stray off-course.

This is one of those promises I’ve known and trusted, but have always heard it in its future implications: “will never… will have”.

Today I’m challenged to hear it in its three-fold sense. As we’ve followed Jesus, we have been kept from walking in darkness and we have received the light of life.

In this moment, we are not walking in darkness, and we have the light of life.

And yes, as we continue with Him, we will never walk in darkness and we will continue to have the light of life.

Today that feels reassuring to me. This isn’t something I have to wait for, or persevere for. It’s here and now, surrounding me, and I only need to rest in Jesus and keep walking with Him.

It’s practicing the presence of Christ. Following Him moment by moment.

Father, I pray in confidence, because of who You are and because of the promises You’ve made. Make me mindful of Your presence throughout the day, not just when I stop to read Your Word or to pray. Let me appreciate Your company on this journey, let me remember to follow closely so I’ll stay in the light and reflect it to those around me.

∞

This week’s song is “Great Light of the World,” by Bebo Norman. I’d forgotten how much I love this song.

How to Pass the Test

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When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.”
John 6:5-6, NIV*

God’s tests reveal to us what we’ve already learned, or how successfully we apply it, or they show us we still have some learning to do.

I can imagine Philip looking around and seeing the impossibility of feeding a crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children. He heard Jesus’ question and felt responsible to provide a solution.

To pass the test would have been to turn to Jesus for the solution.

The disciples had already experienced Jesus’ miraculous signs, and this new challenge was an opportunity to extrapolate their faith from what they’d seen into new territory.

Jesus wasn’t into pulling things out of thin air like an entertainer. He worked with the materials on hand, be it water when people needed wine, or a damaged person who needed wholeness.

I’d like to think Andrew passed the test by telling the group about the boy with the loaves and fish, but he finished his sentence with “but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:8-9, NIV*)

How many times do I do the same thing?

Father, by Your grace I’ve seen You work in my heart and circumstances. I’ve heard the testimonies of other believers. When life throws the next question at me, please help me pass the test. Help me remember You already have in mind what You plan to do. Help me trust you.

∞

Let’s encourage our spirits with Matt Redman’s song, “You Never Let Go”.

Happy Ending to a Long Story

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God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
2 Thessalonians 1:6-7, NIV*

I love happy endings. They can make even the most difficult story worthwhile. Sometimes it’s a hard slog to get there, but at last things work out.

Around the world, people are suffering. Christians aren’t the only ones, but they’re doing their share In North America, Christians have it easy: we’re only treated as irrelevant or repressive. (Some of that we’ve earned, but that’s another story.)

In Paul’s day, the believers in Thessalonica were suffering because of their faith The verses I shared above were to give them hope, but also to give them perspective: help is on the way, just hang on until He gets here

It looks like they expected Jesus to return any day and wrap things up. Good thing they didn’t know we’d still be waiting in 2010! But He is coming, when the Author and Finisher of our faith declares that the time is right.

I don’t understand everything in the Bible, but I’ve read the end of the Book: we win. Revelation chapters 21-22 are some of my favourite passages. After all the hardship, suffering and false turns, we’ll reach the end—and what a glorious end it will be!

Father, thank You for Your Holy Spirit—God with us, who strengthens and keeps us in the hard times. Help us fix our eyes and hearts on You and live by faith. Thank You that we have Your promises, including Your promise that in the end we’ll be with You.

∞

“Reading to the end of the book” brought to mind a song I hadn’t heard in years. Here’s Michael W. Smith with “End of the Book.” This is a long concert clip, and the first half is a cool instrumental piece. If you’re short on time, slide the progress button over to the three-minute mark. Prepare yourself for a trip back to 1985….

Janet Sketchley

Writing Christian Mysteries & Suspense