hope

As soon as I got the message I called the hospital to talk with him. Chest pains are nothing to sneeze at.

Me: “How are you feeling?”

Him: “With my hands.”

Oh how I wish I could have that kind of sense of humor at such a difficult time. While I’ve been told I have a good sense of humor, I’m painfully aware of its tendency to go AWOL at particularly dark times.

It’s during those times that I have to diligently guard against throwing a temper tantrum and yelling for my mommy.

Being an adult, hundreds of miles from my mum, and possessing an intense desire to be masculine, I choose instead to seek help in the form of hope.

Without hope, there’s nothing.

Feeling the urge to yell “Mommy!” this afternoon, I used my Bible software to find hope. Found out the word is used 165 times in the NIV, and since I’m partial to Psalms, I was especially interested in what was there.

I found this:

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”1

I like this verse. Very much.

God’s “word”—the Bible—is full of hope. There’s hope for the sinner and for the sufferer. And I’m both.

So are you, my friend. Like me, you’ve sinned. And like me, you’ve suffered. Our experiences may be vastly different, but we’re both doing the best we can here on this planet filled with temptations and pain.

So what’s weighing on you today? Whatever it is, know this: God’s “word”—the Bible—is full of hope. Because of that, I encourage you to bow your head right now, ask the Lord for a healthy dose of hope, and then open the book and see what you can find.

It’s there. Trust me.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”

1  Psalm 130:5