5 Days From Resilient Hope by Christine CaineSample

LIVE AS A PRISONER

For seventy years, the children of Israel were held in captivity in Babylon, while the enemy pillaged their homeland. When they at last returned home, they found nothing but destruction. Even Jerusalem and the temple had to be rebuilt. But in the midst of their despair, Zechariah prophesied hope for their future.

God knew that the way for His people to escape their pit of despair—the same place of hopelessness in which we sometimes find ourselves—was for them to become “prisoners who have hope,” or as other translations say, “prisoners of hope.” It was the way forward. The way to live enduring in their faith.

But how do any of us do that? And what on earth does it even mean? Aren’t prisoners people who are locked up in high-security institutions and stripped of all their freedoms? Why would we want to be characterized as a prisoner of anything, including hope?

Because a prisoner of hope in God is different. God’s prisoners of hope aren’t forced into an institution for punishment, but are invited into a fortress for safety.

Imagine a castle that stands firm, even when the very foundations of life are shaken. A place created just for us, where we can chain ourselves to the promise that God is working all things for our good, even when all things are falling apart. From the high tower of this fortress, we prisoners of hope can see a whole new perspective. We can look beyond the circumstances surrounding us to the future, trusting that God has good things in store for us.

When I first learned to think and live this way, it was revolutionary for me. I was raised in a religious tradition that never encouraged me to expect good things from God. In fact, it was considered presumptuous to even imagine that God had time for my requests, given that He had an entire world to run. I’m so glad I discovered that despite the heartaches I have been through, He is still good and He wants to do good for me. He wants me to have hope, risk hope, get my hopes up, even after they are dashed once again. He wants this for me so much that He calls me to be a prisoner of hope.

Will you risk being one too? I know it can be unbelievably hard. There are unimaginable heartaches and excruciating losses that can come with life, and yet God extends a daring and loving invitation with an amazing promise: Return . . . you prisoners of hope . . . I will restore double to you.

Heavenly Father, with a deep breath, I risk hope once more. In the face of loss and disappointment, even fear, I will risk hoping again. I will become a prisoner of hope. In Jesus’ Name, amen.