The 40 Day Journey - Day 21 (Hope Finale)

I had one more hour with God today listening and asking Him to bring clarity to anything that I needed to understand about hope. (...for now)

I have been thinking about the ways I toss around words like mercy, hope, grace as if they are common words, trivial.  Last week when someone said to not lose hope to me, I really wanted to understand what that meant, it is not a cliche or shallow word. 

That was my motive in bringing this to the Lord and He has settled some truths in my heart about this. In the seeking is finding and this is what I found.

Hope is both a noun and a verb, it has a biblical definition and it has a Webster's Definition.  Hope has great depth of meaning in scripture.  It is connected with perseverance and joy.  Hope is eternal. ("But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor. 13:13) Hope is what we received when the veil was torn and is our passage to God. (*bonus side note: passage as defined in Webster's is "a long, narrow space that connects one place to another", does this remind you of other scriptures?)

To wrap these thoughts up, God directed me to Ezekiel 37 today. I read about the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.  You can read it too, but the Nancy shortened version is, God showed Ezekiel a valley of dry bones. He then said to tell them in verses 5-6, 

"Thus says the Lord God to these bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life...and you will know that I am the Lord.'"

God explains that the dry bones are the House of Israel and they say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished...." and then God makes a promise in verse 14:

"And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,"...

Did you see that sequence?  Israel's hope had perished and God promises to put His Spirit within them so they will have life!  And why does He do this?  That they may know God.  If we back up a chapter, Ezekiel 36:22 says, "...It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name..."

I feel like I have had a bipolar experience on this journey of untangling my ideas of hope.  I've swung from one end of deciding to never use the word "hope" unless I am speaking of Jesus and looking up dozens of verses to support this idea to a very simple explanation: Hope is Jesus. And He is enough. 

And I need not fret. If I do "lose" my hope, God is at the ready to breath life into these dead bones of mine and restore what was lost. And this is not for my sake, but for His holy name.  

I mentioned yesterday that we heard Jon Guerra in concert, one line from his song is, "I don't know what I don't know, but what I know is You and Your love and that is enough for me."

So I don't know everything there is to know about hope. And that is okay. I know Jesus and He is hope, and that is enough for me.

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (Look Up) by Nicole Nordeman

The 40 Day Journey - Day 20 (Sharpening)

It has been a long day and it is way past my bedtime.  However, I don't want to miss what God had for me today (okay, yesterday - it is 1am!)

My day was full of interactions with fellow believers, who happen to be also good friends.  We of course had Moms in Prayer today (God is Pure was the attribute).  We laughed out of sheer weariness of our weeks.  This laughter was good medicine.

I had coffee with a dear friend and had a great discussion on hope - side note, hadn't planned on bringing up what we talked about right now, but I really am trying to still figure this out.  I asked if I can say "I hope your mom gets better."   Because in Romans 5 we know that hope does not disappoint and yesterday I learned that basically true hope = Christ.  So can I throw around the word hope as if there is not deep meaning to it?  I hope it doesn't rain.  I hope we have a nice summer.  I hope your adoption goes through.  I hope your mom gets better. These all have the potential of disappointing.  So if we use hope in regards to things of this earth, does it diminish the true meaning, can it lead to hopelessness....I may be beating a dead horse here, but I truly desire to understand this.

Anyway, I stopped by work and was able to appreciate the amazing office staff we have.  They put others interests above their own, they are hard working, and they love to laugh. Just by being who God created them to be and by using their gifts for God's Kingdom, I am challenged and encouraged.

Before...

Then it was off to the Roadshow in Kent with more dear friends.  We saw several Christian artists, including Jamie Grace, David Crowder, Matt Maher, and MercyMe. We heard a new guy that we really liked, Jon Guerra.  Julia really wanted his CD, as we were walking out at the end of the show, she saw him standing by his table talking with his fans.

...After

I had her stand behind him for a quick photo op.  He turned around and laughed and immediately drew everyone in for group shot.  Great guy!

So how do these moments figure into my time with God today?  I still had been working through this idea of hope and asking God to reveal to me what I needed to learn.

However, He showed me something different.  God showed me that He has strategically placed people in my life to "sharpen" me - as the verse says above.  God uses other believers to help shape us.  The interactions I had today, encouraged me and made me think.

I love the two pictures above.  The first one, there is no interaction, not much good comes from admiring someone.  Your lives are completely independent and no good has come to either of you. The second picture represents relationship.  We truly need each other.

So tonight I say thank you for being a fellow sojourner and for sharpening me to be more like Christ. And thank you for the discussions on hope: in person and even on Facebook.  Thank you for unfolding scripture to me. You truly are a treasure!