Hope

"I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."  Psalm 27:13 NKJV

How many times have we been tempted to give up. This may have been a cross country run, one in which every fibre of your body is hurting and you feel that you can't go on any longer. The temptation to give up at this stage is immense.
Then there is the times when we have been waiting ages for something - whether it be an answer to prayer, or a job offer. The waiting sucks at times and we feel like giving up at this stage. There is also the despair that comes from daily Christian life - waiting to be used in a particular field within the church - waiting for answers to prayer that never seem to come. Waiting; hoping; hanging on to the dream; waiting for that miracle. We need hope - the biblical hope that I've mentioned in earlier readings.

Dr Thomas Fuller, clergyman and historian from the 16th century, wrote: If it were not for hope, the heart would break'. Yesterday has gone. It has ended, there is no hope in that. But today is a new day, full of anticipation and hope:

'Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion" says my soul. therefore I hope in Him.'                                                                                    Lamentations 3:22 - 24 NKJV

Hope begins and ends with Jesus. Hope inspires and pushes us to embrace the future - the future that God wants us to have. Without hope, we're lost. Are you reading this and wishing that you could have this type of hope? Are you thinking, 'Things good only happen to other people, not me? Do you know something, if out of many millions of people who had been rescued from some worldly disaster, you were the only person who were lost somewhere; Jesus would stop doing what He was involved with and He would go out looking for you, to bring you to safety. That is Jesus, and you know what? He loves you more than I could ever tell you. Now that is something to hope about, isn't it? And you know something? He is calling out to you, "Where are you? Are you going to answer Him?