Born for Rescue: A 5-Day DevotionalSample

HOLD OUT FOR HOPE

TODAY’S STORYLINE

We were goners, easy target practice for the Taliban soldiers surrounding our position. Things were looking pretty bleak and hopeless.

As the translator spoke with the leader of the armed group, I waited for the worst. But to my surprise, gunshots never rang out and no one ever put a black bag over my head to whisk me away to some undisclosed location for ransom or execution. Instead, the translator approached me and said, “They are the bodyguards for the leader who runs the refugee camp. They’re here to escort us there.”

To this day, I’m not sure how they knew we were coming, but somehow they had been made aware of our mission to bring aid. The truth is, without their escort, we would have never made it to the camp alive. My suspicion is that God’s grace extended through the influence of my friend, Shahbaz, who was paving a road for us through unimaginable chaos.

The refugee camp was situated near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was winter, which meant that at night it was getting very, very

cold—the windchill often reaching temperatures of 20 or 30 degrees below zero. People were still streaming into the camp by the thousands every day, escaping over the mountains from their recently leveled towns and villages with all the worldly possessions they could carry in their arms on a nightmarish journey lit only by moonlight and explosions.

Men. Women. Children. Babies. The elderly. Families. These were real people on the verge of freezing and starving because the leaders of the camp had nothing to offer them except what few supplies the UN was willing to drop several miles away from the camp. For the most part, all they could do to help these newly arriving refugees was dig holes in the ground so they could get out of the wind at night—and a growing number of thousands upon thousands of people were just being left there to survive on their own. The world was doing nothing to help them.

They had no hope for survival, but God had other plans that not only included getting us through the city safely, but more importantly, bringing much-needed supplies to these people in dire need. He was working for the good of all of us, even in our diversity of hopeless situations.

SEEING YOUR OWN STORY

I’ve been all over the world and have met people facing crises and circumstances that seemed beyond all hope. To be honest, my addiction to alcohol and my poor choices rendered my own marriage hopeless—and a marriage can’t get much worse than having already ended in divorce.

But my story is one of seeing God’s grace cultivate hope out of the driest, hardest soil of grave circumstances. I’ve seen God do it in the lives of thousands of others as well, from girls trapped in sexual slavery in the red light districts of East Africa to whole villages—including babies and the elderly—fleeing for their lives in the middle of the night to escape brutal ethnic cleansing in South Sudan.

Where is the hope in these situations—in your situation?

Romans 8:24-25 reminds us of the nature of hope: it involves waiting for something we’ve not yet necessarily received in full. In this regard, hope can bring us strength and also try our patience. Yet God invites us to hold out for the hope He offers because though it seems impossible to us in the present, He is right now about the work of making right all the wrongs of this world. It is a mystery, but even though we are surrounded by such darkness and pain, when He is finished, not one moment of our pain will be wasted. It will all be redeemed.

I’ve seen evidence to hold out for hope. I’ve seen a dead marriage come back to life. I’ve seen young girls set free from sexual slavery and go on to incredible accomplishments in this world. I’ve seen God show up when all seems hopeless.

So don’t give up as you wait patiently—and maybe also painfully— in hope. You are not forgotten.

LET’S PRAY

Father, sometimes the shadows of this world can feel so overwhelming, drowning out my view of the light. I admit that I sometimes harbor hopelessness not only for the world at large, but also for myself in the smallness of everyday life. Remind me of the love that sustains me now and that will someday redeem all this brokenness around me. Restore me to hope again today, and every day ahead, as satisfying tastes of Your daily bread offered for my good. Amen.