The God of hope

    “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)
    I share the testimonies I share because we all need hope. We all need to know that in the midst of impossible circumstances, as we face mountains that are difficult to climb, the God that we serve will come through for us. It may be impossible for us to achieve, but certainly not impossible for our God.
    I recently listened to the testimony of Shannon who got into a terrible car accident. Her two daughters were with her. They had all been critically injured. While her daughters were expected to make it, doctors felt that even if they saved Shannon’s life, she would be in a vegetated state. Their family and their church got into fervent prayer for them. Jason, her husband, chose to keep on believing, to keep on praying and he encouraged others to keep praying. He chose not to give up. He believed that Jesus was the only one who could change their impossible situation. 
Jesus did not disappoint them. Today, Shannon is a walking, talking miracle of what God can do.
    God is still the God who can do all things, especially those things that we cannot do. It can be difficult to have faith, to have hope in the face of negative circumstances. At the end of the day, many times, we do tend to walk by sight and not by faith. What we can see and touch, has a more powerful effect on us than what we cannot. Yet, God wants us to trust Him. The difficult situations that we do not like, is what God uses to build our faith and trust in Him. As much as we would like that bad things never happen to us, God will allow them because we actually need them for our own personal development. In addition to that, we won’t know what it’s like to have hope, if everything went well all of the time. We need those messy, unpleasant seasons, to instil hope in us and to remind us that God is many times our only hope.
    There are a number of stories in the Bible that can be used to describe this hope. I recall the story of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). As he sat begging at the side of the road, he heard that Jesus was coming. He cried out to get his attention but the crowd tried to silence him. He cried out even louder. Jesus heard him. When Jesus found out that he wanted his sight restored, He gave him his request. 
    What I like about this story is that Bartimaeus did not allow the negative response of the crowd to stop him from asking Jesus for His help. In fact, when the crowd tried to silence him, he shouted even louder to get Jesus’ attention. Bartimaeus had a hope, an expectation that Jesus could and would do something for him and he was not going to let the opportunity pass him by. He had most likely heard of Jesus’ miracles and expected that if Jesus did it for others, He could and would do it for him. This hope emboldened him to the point where he would not allow a crowd to shut him up. He wanted to be healed and he was going to get his healing. No one would stop him!
    Do we have enough hope and faith in what Jesus can and will do for us, that we are willing and determined to push past whatever obstacle may come our way? In my own experiences, God has taught me that He is my hope even when I feel hopeless. He has the final say in my situation, even in the face of negative opinions on it.
​    I think sometimes, hope is all we need, and God will do the rest. Sometimes, the only thing we can truly do is to have hope in the God who can do impossible things. I’m sorry to say that we will sometimes have to face negative situations in life. But, I am equally happy to say that our God of hope can enable us to make it through whatever comes our way. We can’t. He can. He will never fail.
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour I encourage you to do so today. As challenges come to test our faith and drain us of hope, our God is the hope we need to make it successfully through any situation. We are not alone.

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