Thursday, September 4, 2008

In Need of Hope

Once again it's been awhile since I've posted. Honestly the past month or so has been a difficult one. I've been feeling low on hope. The demands of day to day life, the struggles of family and friends, the dark world that surrounds us has simply got me in a funk. Lately I've often thought of the first section of Proverbs 13:12 which says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick". The rest of this verse says "but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." My life over the past few years seems to be characterized by the first part of this verse much more than the second.

My heart tells me that life as it is, is not as it should be. I have many desires that go unfulfilled and perhaps always will. I recently went through a study of Revelation by Anne Graham Lotz. In this study she focused on the hope we can have in knowing Christ. But much of this hope in my estimation, is hope we have in the future not necessarily hope that we will see in this life. I am so thankful for the hope of heaven I have as a believer in Christ, but often I become weary of holding onto hope.

I don't have a quick, pat answer to raise my spirits in this time. I continue to walk by faith - knowing from past experience that God is still with me, and looking to His word for encouragement. But as I reflect on my reactions to similar periods of time in my past I am encouraged. I feel I have grown over the past 10 years - I continue to walk with God now even when I don't always see His hand. In the past I have become extremely depressed and turned away from God at times like this. Now I feel the prompting to just keep on keeping on, trying to remember that the problems of this world are very temporary in light of eternity.

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