Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As I write this my hope is colored dark by grief. My father’s health is failing and my family is struggling to see a strong man of God lying helpless and suffering in pain. It is enough to shake one’s faith and leave an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. But then the Spirit gives me a word, a moment of clarity. He reveals His truth to me at the perfect moment, just when I need it (as we learned yesterday). He reminds me that He is our hope. HE gives us hope. And we have hope for a future. A beautiful time when tears will be no more, when bodies will be perfect and holy and we will celebrate life eternally with the One Who made us. What a glorious hope for the future, for life.
My hope comes from Him and Him alone. I pray that YOUR hope is in our amazing God, our Lord who gives and who takes away. He is the source of our hope and peace. Paul tells us in today’s verse that we have joy and peace as we trust in Him. He is the God of hope and He wants us to be filled with a peace that surpasses all understanding. But we have to first place our hope in Him, trust that He knows what He is doing, that He has a plan and that plan far surpasses any we could ever dream of on our own.
Why do we think our ways are better? Why do we try to stand alone and do things without trusting in Him to guide us? We have a Spirit in us that understands what we are experiencing, what we are going through, and He wants us to turn to Him and trust that He feels every tear we cry and He knows every sorrow in our soul and He wants to fill us with His peace, to replace the grief and sorrow with joy.
Not only does He want us to be filled with peace and joy, but He wants us to OVERFLOW with it. He wants to fill us so full of perfect peace and joy that it breaks free of us and flows outward to others, filling them, inspiring them, and helping them to learn to trust in Him, too. They see the peace and joy in us and think “I want what they have.” We become a living testimony to the grace and beauty of a Father Who gives us immeasurable peace.
Where do you place your hope? Where do you turn in times of need and suffering? Trust in the Lord. He is the God of Hope. And that hope can be yours today, overflowing and filling you with peace and inexpressible joy, if you just turn to Him.
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