Wow, Such a tiny word that doesn't take up a lot of space in a sentence, but can take up so much room in your soul. The dictionary defines hope by saying it is "to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment, to expect with confidence." As I was reading my daily scripture on my little calendar, I came across Psalm 71:14 today! It spoke to my heart something serious, and I just thought would share my heart's reflection.
When I read it this morning, I thought yes, this exactly what I needed to read. When we are sad or discouraged, we are quick to lose hope in what our Heavenly Father has for us. (or maybe I am the only one who does?) I am just being honest, I do..... (insert sigh here, because I hate that I do this)
I am quick to say, gosh well why did He let that happen? What was the point of all of this falling into place just for it all to go away? Then, in all of my doubting and negative talk, I begin to lose the hope that I had and start letting my faith value diminish. I stop talking about how good God is and begin to give the enemy way too much of my words. This is credit and time that the enemy does not deserve, but has been given to him by me. This means I am allowing Satan to rob me of my praise that belongs to God and God alone.
Even when bad things happen, and plans fall through, we have to be confident in the truth that we know and hope continually like David says in this Scripture. When I cannot rejoice in what I have at the moment, I can continue to hope for what is to come to me. We know that we can do this through faith in the promises of God. For example, God promises us in Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love the Lord." So, while I may not be able to rejoice at the very moment of the defeat or the sadness or the loss, I can still hope for what's to come, because God said it's going to be GOOD.
Hope is continual like the Psalmist says, we know that God is not finished with us. He has promised us that He not going to withhold any good thing and He has a good plan for our lives. When we cannot see the goodness around us, we can stand in our faith knowing that we have hope in a Savior whose promises never return to void. While we are waiting for what we are hoping for, we have to fulfill the second part of this scripture, "will yet praise You more and more...."
We cannot let our praise diminish because our hope was shaken. We cannot stop praising God for all of His blessings, praise unlocks miracles, praise is our love language to God. Unfortunately, sometimes we (again I say we, but really I am talking to myself here as well) get so wrapped up, in our everyday life that we forget about the blessings we have ALL AROUND US. If you are reading this right now, you some how have been blessed to be able to go to school to have been taught to read, you have been given or earned access to a phone or computer that has internet to read this, you are breathing, you are alive, you are not in a third world country starving for your next meal, you are sitting in the land of the free reading this blog, you, friend, are blessed. I forget this all the time. Sometimes we are waiting for the next blessing from God and not thanking or praising Him for the little or big blessings that He has given us along the way to the next.
Doesn't that just break your heart? Thinking that we could be ignoring God's precious little gifts along the way. It makes you think of a time you may have forgot to tell someone in your life thank you for a little something they did. I hate when I forget to say thank you. It happens to all of us, time got away or that person left before we got a chance to talk or maybe you never hit send on the text, etc. Sometimes it really hurts the person's feelings that did something nice for us, when we don't even acknowledge that we appreciate it...I don't ever want to do that to anyone, but especially God, however, I think I do it more often than I realize unfortunately...
Thinking on this scripture, I want to learn from this, that the word YET in that scripture is reminding me that my praise is not to dwindle down because I haven't gotten what I wanted. Instead, I should praise God more and more because I can trust that He has the best possible plan for my life ready for me . He knows what I need before I even need it, therefore He deserves more and more praise. He is so good, all the time, even when we don't feel like He is good. We can trust that HE IS FAITHFUL because he gave us His son Jesus that we might be able to even have this Hope in the depths of our very soul.....
I pray that somehow this has ministered to you like it has to me. I know it's 1:30 am and I have rambled and rambled, but if you are walking through something and if you feel like God has not answered your prayer, just try and have hope in knowing that His promises are true and He loves you so much. You are His prized possession and He has your best interest at heart. Even if you can't rejoice at this moment, have hope in knowing that your answer is coming and praise Him while you wait for it.
If Seth and I can pray for you in any way, please let us know.
Living to make Jesus famous,
Amy DuVall
xoxoxo
P.S. This is my favorite song right now that kind of goes with this whole blog as well, it's so good.
