Hold on to Hope

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

     Holy longing …

     suspended …

     strips the life from our hearts.

Promises … doubted … drain our strength.

Hopelessness … embraced … gives birth to death.

When you give up desiring the distant country because you’ve been too long in exile …

When every choice you’ve made for far too long has been the wrong one …

When you’re worn out from fighting and don’t remember the reason for the battle …

Hope deferred …

     put off …

     wasted …

     extinguished …

… drives us to destruction.

So what is the opposite?

Hope granted …

Hope fulfilled …

Hope embraced …

Hope received …

… makes the heart whole.

“Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what is still unseen by us, we wait for it patiently.”

Unseen by us, but seen by our Lord. Reality through Kingdom eyes, though still invisible in our daily earth-bound walk.

Circumstances can lie. Experiences can be misinterpreted. Emotions can and do deceive and lead us astray.

Hope based in these things, swayed by them, poisoned by their lies, is a very sickly thing indeed. So-called “hope” lodged in the realm closest to us — readily visible, understood, navigated — is not real hope at all. It is too flimsy, too easily shaken, too likely dismissed and discarded when challenged. It will collapse in a moment under the heavy weight of life.

Kingdom hope, hope in the reality of God’s character and promises, is an entirely different thing …

“Now we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul — it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it—a hope that reaches farther and enters into the very certainty of the Presence within the veil, where Jesus has entered in for us in advance …” (Heb. 6:19-20, AMP)

The very certainty of the Presence within the veil — hidden now from our eyes, but as close as our next breath.

It cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it.

As darkness increases, opposition becomes more strident, the weight of the world bears down on our fragile strands of faith, what anchor for our souls is left?

Hope.