We can always have hope

Hey lovelies,

I hope you’re having a glorious week.

Even if you don’t feel like you are, take another look, look at the details, the precious details of our days can occasionally get overlook due to the bigger negatives around us but there’s always something to be thankful for.

Having hope in a time of despair isn’t always easy but we all have reason to hope.

Have you ever discovered money somewhere that you’d forgotten about? I know I have but you see it was always there, we’d just forgotten about it & this is what happens with the riches we have in Jesus Christ, they’re always there, He is faithful, He never leaves us, He’ll love us in every situation & is willing to meet us wherever we are, whatever situation we’re in but we often forget about them &/or fail to use them. Which leads to us not living the life that our Heavenly Father intended for us to live, one of peace, generosity, kindness, love & hope.

Our Heavenly Father can help us fully know His love & when we do, we can truly grasp His grace, forgiveness, mercy & peace, His provision & His friendship, along with His very presence at work in us & around us, even in todays world we can see our Heavenly Father at work (I live near & work at Loughborough University & our students have started a project that involves collecting materials for making & distributing PPE to frontline health workers & it has led to others being opened around the world with the help of our students who currently can’t be on campus due to travel restrictions, so God has met them where they are & not waited until they came back, people in our church have had things appear on their doorstep from other members of the church, us included, I had 2 beautiful bunches of flowers for my birthday, one of which just appeared on our doorstep, we had a ginger loaf appear on our doorstep (absolutely delicious & if I make it, I’ll share the recipe), Richard had a bag of goodies dropped off for VE day (the 75th anniversary of the end of the war), I know that our Heavenly Father has our household in his sight & we are precious to Him (as are you & your household, we are no more precious than you are, the only difference may be is that I know it).

I see all the time how people are helping other people, how even NHS workers, while working on the frontline are making time to laugh with each other & to send out messages of laughter & hope to others.

Understanding that our Heavenly Father loves us completely & fiercely will fill us with unlimited love & unlimited hope, the kind of love that makes your heart so full that you feel like your chest is far to small to contain it, it makes you feel like you want to go out & show all the world how loved they are, sharing joy & hope with everyone.

(I know 1st hand how this feels, it’s not just emotional, it’s physical, sometimes I feel so giddy, I would laugh at everything, whenever I think about Jesus’ love for me, I always giggle (sometimes, I full on belly laugh) & I never knew why, I’ve asked Him a couple of times but never received an answer, which never really bothered me but I was very curious & a little concerned that I was being disrespectful, it was only last week, when I asked him again that I received an answer, one of the best things in life & one of the easiest ways for me to get out of any mood is laughter & that was his answer, that is why Jesus makes me laugh when I think about His love for me, it doesn’t happen every time but it’s happened to me in church, in bible studies, many, MANY times when we’ve been praying (oh, how I love His sense of humour). I remember a time when I wanted to cry all the time (on occasion, I allowed myself to), due to feeling sadness because I wanted every human in this world to feel the love that I feel, I want everyone to know how loved we are & how precious we all are. I mean, our Heavenly Father sacrificed His only Son for us, think about that for a second, the next time you look at or hold a child, think about the love that would take for a parent to do that!)

Having hope is not something that comes naturally to us, the natural thing for us to do is cross our fingers & hope for the best outcome, like hoping we get the job we want or that those we love are kept safe, with this type of hope the outcome is uncertain & we have no idea what will happen (as I’m writing this, I’m thinking of the years gone by, ‘who did I think was going to answer all the hopes for my life & those in it before I became a Christian??’ Poor silly girl). The concept of hope can be confusing because the hope that comes with the world is not certain at all, it can give you drive to move forward & drive to help others because you have hope that what you’re doing is helping but to have the kind of hope that is certain, the kind of hope that we know will result in the best outcome for every single person in this world, we must expect confidently in our Heavenly Father & that can be hard but the thing is, that is exactly what we must do, to have the kind of hope that is certain, the kind of hope where we know there’s an amazing outcome, we must know God because He is our hope, our only hope!

The hope offered by the world is very different from the hope we have in our Heavenly Father, the bible refers to the hope that people had in God through the years. Jesus is not desire or wishful thinking. Biblical hope is ‘confident expectation’.

We are not needed to have a mountain of hope, a lot can be grown from a seed, which can sustain us in both the good times & the devastating times. The battle may seem like it’s lost sometimes but have hope because hope is not lost, it is always present & will never cease.

Today, make God of hope your hope. Through Jesus you can have a confident expectation that far exceeds any hope this world can give you!

The following are bible verses referring to hope

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Honesty time………….I wasn’t going to write a blogpost this week, since writing last weeks (How God can help us stop our worry cycle), I’ve hardly been on my bible app & only opened my bible when I’ve had to (had to??? Oh dear me Sarah!), in fact, I’ve not had the inclination or motivation to do anything much at all this past week……….until today, my second prayer this morning was to ask my Heavenly Father for help with motivation & inclination to do some bible study & some course work today, I did my bible study hours ago (I’ve been up since about 6:40am UK time) & I decided to do this blogpost instead of my course work because I was inspired to do this blogpost by todays bible app verse story. I don’t feel bad because I didn’t do any coursework today because He would rather me do this than my course work. Todays YouVersion bible app verse is –

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I again used the YouVersion app on my phone & my book of bible verses shown in this Friday favourites.

Let’s pray

Your resurrection from the dead gives me hope Lord Jesus, hope through Your victory over death, hope for life here on earth, hope for my future in heaven. My hope is in You, I have no one else, nothing else of substance in which to put my hope. Yes, I can put my hope in a job, relationships with people, cars, abilities, money or even electronic devices but not one of them will last. You alone are everlasting. My faith & my hope are in You, Lord Jesus. My heart waits for You. You are my anchor, steady & strong. I love You. In Your name. Amen.