HOPE

Hmm you know ive always wanted a solid definition or understanding of hope, it being my middle name and all and I think its just the act of looking at God instead of my circumstances, fears, mistakes, or failures. Hope is deciding to believe Him. 

Ive been thinking about the reality of the day I see Jesus face to face. I believe that  day will come, and if it's true than he is true and he is good and for me and loves me as much as ive heard and read and sometimes felt. 

I think on that day I will see how worthless worry is, how deceitful doubt is, how much unbelief steals everything Jesus is.

If all the worry and stuff is a lie then, then its a lie now and I think hope is what moves me to believe that, as in act differently, be-living in the real truth.

How much time have I wasted, and I mean WASTED just trying to figure out my little world of me, as if I will have things all in order someday on my own-as if my controlling it will put things at rest. 

There is a moment in my heart's mind; its found right after a question forms in my heart about anything going on and right before I turn that question into worry, fear, and unbelief, right before I take it into my own hands to figure it out or react selfishly or pridefully. That brief moment is where HOPE lingers, waiting to be chosen. I mean small little thoughts that could turn into complaints like, its so cold! why i gas so expensive? im hungry and cant find something quick to eat...what did she mean by saying that?.to bigger things like, why cant I just be normal around that person? or why do I get so annoyed in my heart with thim? or how will this thing that I want ever work out? what am I doing here, when will you show me what I should do next? What about those promises, I dont see them actually happening? The thoughts are nomal wonderings but I have the choice to continue dwelling on it and trying to figure it out or make it right for myself or give it to God or look to Jesus and believe that what he said will still happen and however he works it out will be the best way, and wait for him to show me my part..

Its the moment between when Abraham said "Look you have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!" and 3 verses later when "he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteouness." The moment between when Mary said, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" and "Behold, the maidservant or the Lord! Let it be to me acoording to your word." Its what was chosen everyday running and hiding and growing and waiting between when David was anointed king over Israel and when he sat on the throne. It's what Jesus himself chose between, "O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pas from Me..." and, "nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." What if he had spent the following hours doubting his identity, doubting his fathers love, questioning his whole life and what the purpose of his death was for. HE had every "right" to. Everything visible around him meant certain death, it was unfair and offensive and godless, he felt the real pain, he felt the words thrown at him, i think he even felt "Father why have you forsake me?" He accomplished a great victory on the cross, one I dnt even fully understand right now but what ameazes me today is HOW he went there, how he saw and fel everything we can imagine of the story, but in his hearts mind he chose to look at Hid Father and believe him. Only then could he say in the face of those who could cause him more pain, "I am. And you will see the Son of Man siting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." (wow that blows my mind) Only then would he choose not to take things into his own hands and ask the angels to let him down from the cross. Only then could he believe that "it IS finished." Only in hope could he GIVE his life instead of having it taken from him...And we think he doesnt know what it feels like to be misunderstood, abused, unappreciated, forgotten.

Jesus made a way to be free of fear, of shame, of guilt, of confusion, of purposelessness; and ill stand before him one day and he will be as real as I am now real to myself, and all of that will be burned up. All that will be left is how much I trusted him, believed him, loved him, and the fruit of that. 

Thats terrifying.

But also freeing.

Oh Chosen One, HOPE in the Lord from THIS day forth and forevermore." Psalm 131:3