Because HOPE…keeps building a nest….
Leaving the parking garage to head to work one morning, I saw an egg lying among the debris and crud of bird life lived in the concrete rafters overhead. To me, that morning, a perfect picture of hopes dashed and dreams left to rot in the filth that seems to characterize the climate of our world and culture.
I struggle. And I don’t hide it well.
I am not a poker face.
I am also a Believer. And I believe in the goodness and kindness of God. I believe in His redemption and I believe that He will make all things right in the end.
But I struggle in the in-between to hold fast to what I believe in the face of what I see.
Others more eloquent than I provide expression for the battle. Songs like “Worn” by 10th Avenue North give phrasing to the root of the problem. I have, at times, let my Hope fail.
So time and again, I sit or kneel or lean before the Lord and remind myself of what I know to be true.
To ponder on what is True.
To know Truth.
Yesterday morning we sang the old hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation”. A beloved praise song that stirs memories from earliest childhood of Sunday mornings with my family surrounded by the swell of voices in church.
Even as we sang yesterday, my heart was strengthened by phrases like…
Ponder anew…what the Almighty can do…
And I marvel that the man who penned these words, Joaquim Neander, lived a mere 30 years; dying in 1680 of tuberculosis.
Across centuries, someone whose life was so short, speaks of hope renewed.
I read in Streams in the Desert this morning from F.B. Meyer, writing a hundred plus years before us…
“The education of our faith is incomplete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness…In some way or other we will have to learn the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver.”
Because Hope comes not from our circumstances, but from the Giver…He is our HOPE.
And renewing our Hope in Him does not just mean we go merrily along our way. It doesn’t mean we just find a way to cover our suffering or get over the pain.
It means we put feet to our faith, and we continue on. We trust God to meet us in our brokenness and we allow Him to raise us up out of the mess and the mire.
As He redeems our messes and our messiness, we move forward with a greater sense of trust that our Hope is in the One and Only One, Jesus Christ. Jesus, who came into our world, took on our flesh, bore our sin, paid our debt, rose again and lives….LIVES…to speak and intercede for us.
On Friday, as I was leaving the garage, I saw some kind of a stick waving in the air.
When I glanced over, I saw a bird with a twig in his beak…
As I watched he flew up…up…carefully weaving it into place because…
Hope keeps building a nest.
Wherever you are worn and weary today, I pray you will renew your Hope in Him…the Author and Perfecter of our faith <3
We are studying the Armor of God with Pricilla Shirer, and on the chapter where our feet are fitted with the gospel of peace. She says “Our peace shoes are go shoes. Designed to move forward….You can shout “our God reigns” until He actually does reign in your mind and heart and circumstances. Your feet have been made ready by the gospel. Now go!” Just as you said, “Put our feet to our faith.” God bless you this week, my dear friend.
We are doing that study in our church, but with Room for Doubt it is only offered in the morning. I can’t do that so am doing Beth Moore’s Living Free online. Funny how you think you are missing out, but God speaks the same Word to us all!!! Love it – thanks for the prayers <3