The Power of Hope

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 24-26.

Opening Thought: (I see hope in the title, I’m pumped already). I am a hope junky, and if you must be addicted to something, hope it pretty good. Hope is a challenging thing to be hooked on as well, because ‘what we hope for’ can manipulate how healthy our love of hope is. This is a much larger discussion, let’s see where Nick Vujicic takes us but I might decide to agitate this more later.    

The devotional begins with: 
Psalm 71:12-16

O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
Let them be confounded and consumed
Who are adversaries in my life;
Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor
Who seek my hurt.

But I will hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.
My mouth shall tell Your righteousness.
And Your salvation all the day.
For I do not know their limits.
I will go in the strength of the Lord God;
I will make mention of Your righteousness and Yours only.  

Second Thought: I get the sense that when I read Nick Vujicic, he is in love with hope. In a way, I feel we share this passion. You discover a love for hope when you see what it can do. Nick offers a story on orphans in China, who despite their tragic circumstance have a joy and talent which can only be delivered by hope. I won’t get into the details of the story, but it brought a slight tear to the eye, because I could feel the intensity of the love for hope. I think I discovered my love for hope through my wife. When I was younger, I struggled with health, and in turn I struggled in my schooling and relationships. My wife has a fierce loyalty, which is coupled with hope. Despite my struggles and challenges, when my wife and I were dating, she retained hope for me. In turn I fell in love with hope as I fell in love with her. Suddenly, having such a hope in my heart meant I could better understand God. Not to a full understanding, but that experience of hope at work gave me such new life, that I could not help but also fall a bit more in love with God; a creator which emanates and permeates His hope into our world. The more you learn to look for hope in things; behind victories, behind contentment, the more you will love it. Hope is not just a feeling, and it should not be limited to a particular item or experience. I think we often limit hope to situational hope, as in, oh I hope it doesn’t rain today or I hope my boss approves my vacation. This kind of hope is limited by the outcome, if it does rain, then what happens to the hope? Is it washed away? True hope transcends circumstance. Let me put it this way, (I’ll stick with the rain analogy), I hope to gift my family with love and affection, it would be nice if it didn’t rain because a picnic would be a great way to do that. Suddenly the hope is predicated on love, something that transcends circumstance. If it rains, you can still show your family love and affection, you just might go jumping in mud puddles and sing in the rain rather than a picnic.

Continual Work: “Hope appears even in the worst of times…” I think hope is also like a muscle, if you don’t exercise it, then it will be more challenging to use it properly. The Hope of the Gospel is a very grand hope, it’s a hope for everything and everyone and it is a hope for you. Exercising your muscle for hope is so much more efficient when you regularly approach the Hope of the Gospel. Also, in turn, if you exercise your daily hope, approaching and connecting with the gospel message is so much easier too. The two just go hand in hand.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: Sharing hope can be a challenge. How I understand something as hopeful, may be a total abstract approach to another. So, I will endeavor to listen, and make room to gracefully, with the pose of the Holy Spirit at my back, offer conversations of hope with people as needed. I hope to help them, maybe this approach will!

Scripture time: Psalms 71:12-16

I am sticking with the scripture that Nick provided for this portion today because something rings out. “Let them be confounded and consumed Who are adversaries in my life; Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor Who seek my hurt.” Now David, as likely writing this portion towards the end of his life was probably dealing with the Rebellion of Absalom or other possible issues. So even though the word ‘adversaries’ could be taken as a spiritual adversary, I will assume the more human sort, for at least today’s devotion. One of the challenges of hope being a way-to-live-by is what happens when you have adversaries; people you feel are against you. How do you hope for an enemy? I feel a large Biblical audit would need to take place to get a detail account of what Christ calls us to do, to save time, I personally just want to grapple with the feeling in my heart today. How do I hope for those in opposition to myself? Or more challenging, those I believe to be in the opposition of what Christ calls us to be and do? It is not easy, to know how to do this, let alone just the mere threshold to move to feeling a hope for those people. Looking to our neighbors in the United States, I see so much division, not because of policy and political party, (though it is a major part) but because I feel many people have lost hope in each other. They merely want the enemies to be confounded and consumed, like David did, and they have not evolved to a more Gospel method. Not to undermined the issues that world is facing, but we should not be facing them without  glimmer of hope in our hearts, a hope that is for anyone willing to look for it.     

Prayer Time: God of Hope, let me love hope, like only little children love pennies, sticks, marbles, and gum. I want to love hope as a play thing, something that can develop my imagination, exploration, dedications and joy, let my hope be a shining beacon of light, let my hope be a echoing choir in the silence, let my hope be Your hope all the days of my life. Amen.  

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: Luke Combs Six Feet Apart – Lyrics

I heard this country song the other day, hope is in us, it is a part of the law which is written on our hearts. It echoes in the Christian message but in everything also. Here is a few words for this secular song, searching for hope.

When the dogwoods start to bloom
And the crickets hum their tune
That's usually about the time
That I feel most alive
But the news has all been bad
And the whole world seems so sad
I ain't had much else going on
So I sat down and wrote this song

I miss my mom, I miss my dad
I miss the road, I miss my band
Givin' hugs and shakin' hands
It's a mystery, I suppose
Just how long this thing goes
But there'll be crowds and there'll be shows
And there will be a light after dark
Someday when we aren't six feet apart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sayh8ZASxk8