Good morning…
I love that God has given me meaningful moments with my soul friend this week. After church. During a quick visit in our home. We shared brief time, hugging, expressing, processing. With her 37-year-old daughter-in-law boldly battling colon cancer, my friend said, “I believe God needs Elizabeth on this earth. I have to keep hoping for a miracle. I just have to have hope.”
I left our conversation thinking, “How does hope actually happen?”
Up in the early morning hours of prayer on behalf of many who are facing challenges circumstances, I am drawn to a short Scripture verse with a very powerful promise: Our hope is not deceptive because the Holy Spirit has already been poured into us (Romans 5:5). Stop a moment. Think about this sentence. Savor with me this enduring truth.
Our hope
is not deceptive
because the Holy Spirit
has already
been poured into us.
We deepen into the divine dynamic. Hope is not human-made. Enduring hope comes from God. We have already been given this free gift. Our hope is not deceptive. Not ambiguous. Not misleading. Not false or fraudulent. Our hope is not deceptive because it has already been poured into us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our single focus is to rest beneath the abundant outpouring of the God of endless love. Hope quietly collects in us, forming a reservoir of living water to refresh our thirsty soul. We are buoyed from beyond, miraculously equipped to face the needs of each new day.
“You’ll know then that I am God. No one who hopes in me ever regrets it” (Isaiah 49:23b, MSG).
“I’m having to remind myself that I am not writing this story, my doctors are not writing this story, but God is writing this story,” Elizabeth herself wrote in a recent blog post. “My hope cannot be in my treatment plan, medicines, doctors, nurses (though I trust them and am obviously doing exactly what they are telling me to do), but it must be in the One who made me and knows every cell and every part of me. The world would tell me that this looks bleak and hopeless. I’m not a statistic, I am Elizabeth, a child of God who is fearfully and wonderfully made. We believe in a God who can work miracles, who cares deeply for each of his children, who pierces the darkness with light.”
It is pretty amazing to actually watch hope happen in a real person. Hoping in God alone leaves no regrets.
I pray that your hearts will be able to understand. I pray that you will know about the hope given by God’s call. I pray that you will see how great the things are that He has promised to those who belong to Him. I pray that you will know how great His power is for those who have put their trust in Him. It is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. This same power put Christ at God’s right side in heaven. This place was given to Christ. It is much greater than any king or leader can have. No one else can have this place of honor and power. No one in this world or in the world to come can have such honor and power (Ephesians 1:18-21, NLV).
With the power of God pouring into us, hope happens in our hearts.
…Sue…
