I have noticed myself succumbing to patterns of apathy recently. Feeling like I have been walking through life to the hums of this world, letting anxiety affect my personhood and my purpose.
I miss witnessing the truth wage war and win against the lies and gloom. I miss feeling the power of the Spirit through prayer.
Perhaps you feel like you are in a similar place.
Friend, I hear God calling us to be embraced by Him again and receive His grace afresh. He is gently and powerfully reminding us to set our minds on Him again.
It is a reminder to focus our thoughts on the future awaiting us. He is beckoning us to be filled with joy and peace as we trust Him with everything we have been trying to control.
I hear Him emboldening us to renew our hope.
Hope is a wellspring of goodness, truth, and beauty.
To hope is to participate in the divine. To hope is not to invalidate present pain, but rather, to acknowledge present pain and thank God for a future free of pain.
As believers, we do not hope in something that may or may not happen. We have assurance that in Christ, there is a future for us, free from suffering and full of perfect love (see Revelation 21:1–4).
The voice of the Lord speaks over us in 1 John 3. It declares that we are His children when we believe in Him. This means that God is our perfect Father, the One who loves us and provides for us and protects us. It means that God teaches us, holds our hand, and comforts us. And it also means that we have a room in God’s house and that all God has is ours.
We are safe, we belong to someone, and we have a forever family. This truth declared over us by God Himself is a reason for hope.
Hope does more than make us feel good.
The very transformation of our personhood and being is facilitated by the meritorious action of hope. In other words, when we participate in the activity of hoping for what is sure to come because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our thought-life, attitude, and behavior change.
When we set our minds on heavenly things, our thoughts are ruled by goodness and peace, and we begin to release worry. Further, when we adopt an upward perspective of hope, we discover a most fulfilling purpose for our lives.
Rather than existing to be known by others, our purpose becomes one of love for all people and ourselves. And when we hope, we become like Christ and bear the fruits of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23).
Someone most dear to me reminded me that, as believers, we fight with the most tender weapons—weapons that the world knows not. Hope is a tender weapon, for to hope is to take God at His Word and rely on Him to wage wars on our behalf and win.
The Psalmist sings this in Psalm 27:13–14:
“Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lᴏʀᴅ!”
Friend, know that within you abides the mightiest power. You have the Spirit of God living inside of you as a believer in Christ, and God’s Spirit overcomes the deepest darkness. You have light, you have hope, and you have victory.
Remember that hope is a tender weapon available to you through Christ.
