3 Things Conjuring Up Hope

Hope can be hard for me.

It can be hard for deep feelers, wide-eyed seers, and those in the dark looking for a glimmer but can’t seem to find one.

Hope can feel naive. It can appear to disappoint. It can sound artificial and inauthentic and pie-in-the-sky.

But I’m learning that it is our lifeline. It keeps the heart ticking, the mind going, the feet walking. Truly. Literally.

When I think of hope, I think of it as a faint whisper coming from the future, beckoning us to come. It’s calm and quiet and unassuming, yet potent. It lures us into the life ahead, into pre-planned things, into purpose, into light, into destiny.

So as I’ve prayed and pondered our next 3 Things, all I see is big black and white block letters that spell:

H-O-P-E

May we close out this post, and this day, with more of it.

Three Things Conjuring Up Hope in Me Right Now

1.) Kids hearing from their Creator

A few months back my youngest dropped a dream on me that I wasn’t really expecting. So much of parenting is made up of handling ticky-tacky sibling rubs and making sure the next thing just gets accomplished. It’s the truth. I love being a Mom, but I often times find it more draining than filling. So when one of them speaks up with something divine, I revel in the surprise and glee of it. This story means much to my mom-heart. One random day my son came to me and said, “Mommy, I had a dream last night that I was a tiny acorn. And that I grew a stem and pushed through the dirt and became a REALLY big oak tree! Then animals came to live in my branches after that!” I could almost cry recounting it. We talk in our home a lot about hearing from God. We want them to be open to His voice no matter where it comes from. But often times I don’t think this stuff makes it to their insides. As I mentioned before, parenting can push me around a bit, so when my kids experience the divine like this, hope surges.

2.) Testimony

It’s funny to come into a place you don’t know, with people you don’t know, who are conditioned by the past in a way that you don’t know – and then lead people in that. Moving to Tennessee, I had no idea how ministry here would pan out. I was even a little fearful that the folks here might not want to dip from the deep wells of God that Derek and I long to lap from. I’m so pleased to tell you….my anxieties have been quieted, just about completely. The people here are precious, and they are hungry and thirsty and good. The stories that are coming from their lives boosts my faith. The courage they have to go out on a limb with God and encounter Him in new ways has shocked and encouraged me. The fruit that is coming from their lives is feeding my convictions.  Their expectation and their actions and their relentless hope – gives the pastor’s wife hope.

3.) Romans 15:13

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” There it is. Reread it a few more times, won’t you? It’s worth it so that you can really contain it. It says that He is the “God of hope”. This means that He’s got it and He gives it. Through the Holy Spirit’s power and might, you are a hope-bearer. 2 Peter 1:3 tells us too that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” I don’t think the news gets any better: All He has is ours! This should make us lean into the allure of hope a little more. It should make us swell with it. It should make us ask for the evidences of it in our lives. Imagine a people that followed the kind, sweet, hopeful call of Christ’s spirit right onto the trail marked out for them. They’d actually thrive there.

I’m praying for you reader, that a life of hope emerges long and strong and that it brings a whole slew of other splendid things right along with it.

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