Right after I published last weeks blog (Faith and Salvation Joy), I was made aware of someone going through very a very difficult challenge. As I joined her in prayer for the situation I saw her in the middle of a wilderness with no clear path around her. She felt lost and hopeless. My time in the Word and with Jesus equipped me to have hope that what she saw as impossibilities, God saw as an opportunity to make some changes.
The scripture that came to my mind as we prayed was Psalm 16:11 you will show me the path of life. This is just a phrase out of the entire verse, but it is the phrase that has brought me through my own wilderness places. As I continued to pray for the situation, I felt inadequate and actually wondered if I was making things worse for her. The hopeless darkness that enveloped her was so strong. I actually got out my phone and read that blog post to her! I felt things start to shift and at least a glimmer of light began to breakthrough.
Things are better, but not fixed or even settled, but she is on the more sure fitting of God’s love and hope. I have encountered many others who are fighting their own spiritual warfare during this time. There seems to be warfare against hope. Hope that God knows, understands and cares about our situation. Hope that God’s love and concern reaches through our own sinful actions (mercy) and restores damaged souls.
I came across this scripture in the Message version, through the YouVersion app. Romans 15:13
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
That word green stood out to me–the hope we are trusting in is alive. We serve the God of All Hope, who is trustworthy and is growing within each of us as we fertilize it with faith and trust. Imagine my chagrin when I opened my Logos Bible program and looked up the same scripture and it read
Oh! May the God of great hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
So I found a typo in the YouVersion app–but God still used it! It is still accurate. The hope we have is living–do not let the cares of this world cheat you out of that hope. Cling to Him, He is faithful! This is my prayer–that the God of great hope will fill us all with joy, peace and we will walk with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit.
Faith Encounters 