Real Hope: Uncertainty & DoubtSample

No One Else. Only God.

Luke the Evangelist is credited as saying, "Remember the past, plan for the future, but live for today, because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come." It seems to me that as you get older you start to appreciate more of the now, for life isn’t lived tomorrow. The Apostle Peter assures us that we have "been born again, we are not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:23).

When I head into a day knowing the things I want to achieve, and all of it falls into a big heap and nothing goes right, I just want to sit down and cry. I wonder why I even bother; then I look to the cross. On the one hand, we have the essence of hopelessness. On the other, we have Jesus’s supreme triumph: victory from the most abject defeat—joy from sadness, mourning into dancing. Why? Because God loves me! He died on the cross for me. He died on the cross for you!

When I read the Psalms, I share the days that David had that weren’t that great. But he weathered through; he reached out to a God who is always there. "You alone are my portion and my cup," David tells us. "You make my lot secure."

Nothing else. No one else. Only God.

Even if tomorrow is not the best day ever, we are assured of something more, something greater, something that lasts forever, something the Lord has promised—full of joy, full of love.

Look to the Lord first, always first, and you will know not just His good and perfect will, but His incredible life-giving love.

Written by CHRIS PARFOOT