Hurting With Hope - From Levi LuskoSample

Day 3: Hurting with Hope

All of us experience times of grief and suffering. 

Believing in Jesus doesn’t exempt us from emotional hardship, and being a Christian doesn’t mean we won’t shed tears during our time on earth. However, it does mean that when we do hurt, we do so with the knowledge that our best days are ahead of us and a time is coming when all sadness will come to an end. 

Hope is a word that gets thrown around a lot in our vocabulary. It’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “I hope things work out.” Or, “I hope it doesn’t rain on Saturday.” In this context, hope is passive and carries no more punch than wishful thinking. But biblical hope is different than secular hope. Biblical hope means we can have confidence in the future based on God’s promises found in the Scriptures. Biblical hope carries a connotation of confident expectation based on the fact that the God of the Bible is faithful to keep His Word. The writer of Hebrews said: 

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil (Hebrews 6:19).

Each morning, we decide to focus on our circumstances or fix our gaze on Jesus and the promises God has revealed to us in the Scriptures. Of course, from time to time we all get down, and it’s easy to shift our gaze and lose hope. But when we do, we can quickly realign our thoughts and shift our focus back to the truth that Jesus is for us and with us in our troubles. 

Where are some places in which you are tempted to place your hope? What changes do you need to make to anchor your hope in Jesus?