This week I reached a point where I said out loud, “I’m losing hope.” I could hardly believe the words escaped my lips. I mean, I have faced some of the craziest, seemingly impossible situations in life a million times and hope came so easily for me. So easily.
I remember when I was taking a group of students on a mission trip back when they required you to have a PAPER airplane ticket in order to get on the airplane. Well, one of my students (the Senior Pastor’s daughter) lost her ticket on our layover and they wouldn’t let her on our connecting flight. Faced with the impossible we stood at the ticketing agent’s desk and prayed. Never once did I think she wasn’t getting on that plane. I knew God would make a way. And just as they were about to close the cabin door, the ticketing agent threw up his hands with a gasp and printed us a boarding pass. We ran on that plane, so happy, so relieved. Hope fulfilled.
And in my mid-twenties, faced with a progressive eye disease that was causing rapid blindness in both eyes, I boldly told the ophthalmologist that I would pray about it and come back in a couple of weeks. Two weeks later I returned only to be found with BETTER eyesight than before. My eyes stabilized for a year, I had Lasik and have had 20/20 vision ever since. Hope fulfilled.
So why now? Why is hope alluding me? I honestly don’t know. I’m praying to the same God. He loves me the same. I love him without reservation. He has already done more for me than I could possibly ask for or imagine. But still I want more. I’d like to be healed again, right now, at this very minute.
If you haven’t heard, I’ve been dealing with a strange illness since March. It causes a constant headache, fatigue and lots of muscle pain and it is RELENTLESS. No medication touches it and no doctor has been able to figure it out. My life has been turned upside down with this illness and I desperately want to HOPE for healing.
So, I’m going to try to hope today.
Maybe you are in a similar place and need a little hope too. If so, take some time to sit with these verses from the Bible today. That’s my plan. Feel free to join me. And also, I’m praying with you today – that soon, very soon we will see our hope fulfilled.
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:11-12