Hope against hope...

          Once again, I was watching the 700 Club and saw a story of hope that caught my attention. It was the story of a little 8-year-old boy, Blake, who suffered a terrible headache while with his family at the community pool. 
          He started clutching his head and screaming that he was going to die. When he started throwing up his family took him to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. There it was discovered that he was suffering from a massive brain hemorrhage. He was immediately air-lifted to a children’s hospital to undergo surgery. The doctors’ efforts were focused on draining the excess blood that had flooded his brain and relieving the pressure on the brain. They feared that he could die or become paralyzed or lose his cognitive and functional abilities.
          His parents knew that their only hope was God and they requested prayer on social media. They chose to focus not on the problem but on a God who could fix anything. Many people around the world began praying for Blake, even hospital personnel.
         When he was stable enough to do an MRI, it showed signs of brain damage and suggested that he might never walk, talk or see again. This news was devastating and made it seem as if all their prayers were for nothing. 
          I am sure there were times when we may have felt as if our prayers were for nothing. You prayed, you believed in an able God and then the opposite of what you are praying and believing for happens. It seems as if you went to God in vain and this is usually the point when many of us give up – on our marriage, on our family, on the possibility of a much-needed financial breakthrough, on healing. 
          Yet, during the night, even after receiving this distressing news, his parents decided to keep praying for a miracle. One of the hospital personnel even prayed that they could get a thumbs up from him although she did not believe that he was capable of doing that. His mother determined to “keep believing until there was no scrap of hope left to hold on to.” His father decided that they were going to “fight until there was nothing left.”
          How many of us are willing to hold on to hope when all hope seems gone? How many of us are willing to fight to the end? It is not easy to keep hoping, to keep fighting. It is so much easier to just give up in the face of what our eyes can see, in the face of what others may be saying that we should do. But, our God is still the One who can make the impossible possible. That’s His specialty, that’s who He is. He still has the final say.
          The next day, the doctors brought Blake out of the medically-induced coma to examine him. The doctor asked him if he could give him a thumbs up ... and he did! They all rejoiced and praised God. His mother said that there was so much hope in that one tiny little gesture. In the days to come he would go through the necessary therapy to enable him to relearn to walk and talk and regain his motor skills.
          I am reminded of the story of the prophet Elijah who was believing God for rain (1 Kings 18:41-45). Seven times he sent his servant to see if he saw any sign of rain. Six times the servant saw nothing but the seventh time he reported seeing a cloud the size of a man’s hand rising out of the sea. It was not a massive thundercloud that signaled a sure sign of rain, just a tiny one that could have easily dissipated. Yet, Elijah chose to see that as the signal for a downpour. He did not wait for it to get bigger but immediately sent his servant to inform the king to “prepare your chariot and go down before the rain stops you” (v.44).
          Sometimes we have to praise God for every tiny cloud the size of a man’s hand that He allows us to see, for every tiny thumbs up that we get to experience instead of waiting for the big miracle to come, for the shower of rain we want to see. It’s about hope, hope in God in spite of the situation, hope in God in spite of what your eyes can see. As Blake’s mother put it, it’s about praying in such a way that says that God this is what I hope for, yet, Your will be done. As I said earlier, God still has the final say. Put your hope in God and leave the results up to Him!
          If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as personal Lord and Saviour, please do so now. This life is filled with challenges and we need a hope that we can hold on to. Give God a chance today to be that Hope in your life and to make the impossible possible!

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