Hi how are you all today? I am okay now but earlier last week I walked through a situation that is not good but has happened a few times. I was becoming battle-weary and thankfully the prayer team at church prayed. Prayer is such a powerful weapon and when people are praying it feels like your arms are being lifted up.
As I was going through that, God highlighted a verse to me as I was reading a daily verse of the day.
It is found in Romans 15:13 and in the Message Bible, it states:
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Hope was what I needed in abundance last week and still do. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary , hope is defined as to expect with confidence. Hope gives us the confidence to keep going when all we want to do is hide and make the situation go away.
Hebrews 11:1 in the New International Version Bible states:
Now faith is confidence in that we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
We need to have faith and trust in God. Without a deep trust in God, hope is only fleeting. Hope is a force and when combined with faith, it helps us through even the darkest circumstances.
In verse 6 of that same chapter, it states that we can’t please God without faith. To be on the same page as God we need faith and hope.
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. This is found in Romans 10:17. When circumstances come against us, we need to pair a verse/s from the Word of God with hope that it will come to pass.
Isaiah 55:11 in the Message Bible states:
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them
God’s Word when spoken with hope will produce what it set out to do. One thing though- no doubting is allowed no matter what we are feeling. This is so hard to do when the circumstances are screaming around us.
That is the reason Jesus said to find a quiet place to pray and shut the door. We are shutting the door on not only the circumstances but also any distractions. We need to remain super focussed when we are in a battle.
Romans 8:26-28 in the Message Bible states:
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
This is what was happening to me last week. I was getting tired in the waiting. These verses tell me that when that happens, Holy Spirit is there with us ready to support us and pray for us. I am so grateful that God sent Holy Spirit to us. I couldn’t do the God life without Him.
The last verse I want to leave you with to encourage you is one of the well-known verses of the Bible and is found in Isaiah 40:27- 31. In the Message Bible it states:
31 Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind.
God cares what happens to you. He created you and He loves you. If we wait on Him we will get fresh strength to rise again and keep on standing on the Word of God with hope and confidence that God will answer.
Without that assurance we have nothing and that is not where God created you to be.
So this week, let’s support each other, stand on the Word of God and have hope in those dark places.
Bless you and keep living the life God intended.
Karen
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