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
As I thought more about this whole discussion about "hope," i realized that many times I use the word, pray (not always- But many). I pray that your mom gets better, I pray that they get there safely, I pray that the kids will follow Jesus... maybe I had this discussion many, many, moons ago. :)
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