Hope

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." GOD's decree. Jeremiah 29:11-14 The Message

Reading this scripture always fills my heart with hope. Hope that the future is good, regardless of what is happening in the present. Hope that God is listening. Hope that when we do seek Him wholehearted we will find Him.

Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart. Psalm 119:2 AMP

For me, this hope has not been unfounded. I can look at the past and see that God did have a plan. I can see that God was listening. I can see that in getting serious about finding Him, I have not been disappointed. But that is not to say that it has not been an easy journey to come to that place. No it has been a long and painful journey of continually surrendering all to God. And I am under no illusion that His work is  complete.  

[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognising and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that is possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]. Philippians 3:10-11 AMP

It is a continual journey of staying close to God no matter what, growing in understanding of Him, and falling deeper in love with Him. 

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focussed on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery! Colossians 2:2-3 The Message

Questions for today, is your heart filled with hope? If not, why not take some time today to talk to God about that, about the disappointment, the pain, the grief, or whatever else is blocking that hope. And be expectant that He will take you on a gentle journey of restoring your hope in Him.

David said it all:

I saw God before me for all time.

Nothing can shake me; he's right by my side.

I'm glad from the inside out, ecstatic;

I've pitched my tent in the land of hope.

I know you'll never dump me in Hades;

I'll never even smell the stench of death.

You've got my feet on the life-path,

with your face shining sun-joy all around.

Acts 2:25-28 The Message