Hope Restored
19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. 21 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. 24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” 25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. 26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. (Lamentations 3:19-26)
Life can be tough. We can go through some terrible times and feel like we will never be the same again. Sometimes the past seems to be in our face everywhere we turn, taunting us and making it difficult to forget and move forward. The more we try to move forward, the more our thoughts chase after us, not willing to allow us to forget. Or it could be a current situation that troubles you. No matter what you do to try and resolve it, you are unable to get past it. The more you try to forget it, the more it sucks you back in to its grip. After a while, you become so tired of dealing with it, you just allow it to overwhelm you and you stay in its grip and all hope for freedom from it seems lost. But it doesn’t have to be that way. God can restore your hope if you turn to Him and daily surrender your situation to Him and stand firm on the promises of His word.
It can be quite easy to give up in the middle of a battle and allow your past or current situation to overwhelm you and take over your thoughts. It happens because you are tired from the fight. Your situation is or was very difficult, even traumatic and painful, and it feels much easier to lay down and stop healing instead of continuing on. In your weariness, you are unable to discern when the battle is yours and when it is God’s, and you battle even when you may not have too.
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14)
Sometimes we find it hard to be still because we have always been taught that WE have to do something. But that isn’t always the case. When we remain close to the Lord, we will be able to discern when the battle is ours and when it is His.
In difficult situations, somewhere along the way we can tend to lose hope if the situation extends for a long period of time and we move away from God due to anger, fear, and feelings of hopelessness. When we lose that hope in God, we have gotten to the point where we have taken off our armor (of God) and have laid down our weapon (sword of the spirit– Word of God) and have replaced faith and love with anger, fear and rebellion.
But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)
We have forgotten all that God has done for us and we were or are unable to see Him in our situation due to the severity of it.
But what does the Bible say about hope?
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation (Psalm 42:5)
“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” – Isaiah 40:31
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13
God has not left you. He may have been silent at times or you may not have been able to see Him in your situation due to the distraction of that situation, but He was there. As Christians, we must utilize everything we have learned about God and His Word, in our trials and problems. We have many great examples of those who have suffered in biblical times yet remained close to God in prayer and applied His Word to their lives…Joseph, Job, Moses, David, the Disciples and most of all, Jesus. There are many more who came after them as well. We will never live a life without problems and trials, nor will we ever live a life without experiencing pain, but when we take God’s word and apply it to our situation and continue applying it no matter how difficult the situation is, God will remain faithful and get us through it and heal us from it.
If you have lost hope and moved away from God, what can you do to get back?
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” – Acts 3:19
It’s a simple act, yet sometimes pride, anger and pain can prevent us from coming to God. There have been times I have been so angry and hurt that even praying was difficult for me and I have had to call out to God and say “I can’t do this! Help me!” even when the situation was not my fault, but I had allowed it to overwhelm me. Within minutes I was down on my knees and praying, repenting and weeping.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9
Never think you are so far gone that God will not help you. If you truly are repentant and have a contrite heart (feeling of regret or sorrow at offenses), He will listen.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)
Sometimes bad things happen to good people due to the world’s sin. Sometimes we start off in our Christian walk only wanting to please God and do what he’s called us to do and find somewhere down the road that all that love and goodness we had was “beaten” out of us due to situations that were sometimes beyond our control. To be honest, that is the enemy’s job…to make sure we do not want to follow God and therefore make our walk extremely difficult. He will always try to make God look like He doesn’t care about you, doesn’t hear you, wasn’t there when you needed Him most. He will try his best to convince you that it’s useless to follow God and to just take care of yourself. Don’t trust, don’t love, don’t forgive, don’t help, don’t hope. These are all things opposite of what God tells us and that right there is a big red flag of the enemy’s work. If you have gotten to this point, it’s imperative that you call out to God for help and begin praying, surrendering the situation and thoughts to God, fasting and reading and applying His Word because the goal of the enemy is to destroy your heart and get you to turn completely away from God. But God wants no one to perish! (2 Peter 3:9).
God has not forgotten you. He has not left you. He is ready to take you back and forgive you and heal you if you would simply turn to Him and ask for that healing. We have to remember that although God does not want to see us go through difficulty, He allows it in order to strengthen us. He wants us to apply His Word to every situation which will not only strengthen us, but heal us in the process from the hurt and pain that situation is causing us. Remember the trials Jesus went through right up to dying on the cross for us. He spent time with His Father every day to receive the strength and healing He needed to do the job He came to do. He suffered through, pain, betrayal, verbal and physical abuse and much more. He brought his agonizing distress of knowing His time was at hand, when He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray because His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38). Jesus taught much about forgiveness and praying for those who harm you because He did it and knew it would prevent our heart from being destroyed and that we would be following in His footsteps.
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44-45)
Sometimes we are the cause of our problems and must suffer the consequences of our actions, but that doesn’t mean God does not love us. He wants us come back to Him.
If you feel you have lost hope, don’t let another day go by without calling out to Jesus. He is waiting for you. Trust, believe and hope in the Lord. He knows exactly what you are going through and He will help pull you out of darkness in into His Sonlight.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)