By: Curt Klingerman
If one is going to find true hope, he needs to put his trust in the One true living God. His heart has to be singular in purpose. There is no room for deviation. The moment you put your trust I anyone or anything else, hope fades away. You will have moved from hope to wishful thinking, also known as false hope. God’s words are life, truth and spirit. Apart from His words, hope has no foundation. This is why it is important to zero in on God alone. Unless a person speaks as an oracle of God by the Holy Spirit, his words will not have a foundation of hope because there is no faith attached to it. Three is no underlying substance on which to stand. Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Whether you are in a time of peace or a time of crises, you need to trust in God in order to have hope for your future. Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
When you center on the Word of God, you better position yourself to receive by faith and walk with expectant hope. As your mind is renewed by His Word, by which also your new man is strengthened, your thought processes changes (see Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10). The more you think like God, the abler you are able to receive from Him. Conversely, the more you think like the world, the less you will be able to receive. Godly thinking reaps godly results; whereas, worldly thinking reaps death. The carnal mind is entrenched in the world, and has no ability to please God nor embrace the things of His kingdom (see Romans 8:5-8). As the Bible clearly points out, the things of God are foolish to the carnal mind. Why? Because as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts above ours. Nonetheless, He does desire for us to receive His Word and thereby receive His thoughts. In turn, His thoughts become our thoughts which solidifies faith and hope.
Long term thinking overrides short term circumstances. Failing to look forward will stall hope in the time of crisis. When you focus strictly on the crisis, it will become the consuming passion of your heart. That passion is strictly concerned with self-preservation and deliverance. It looks for relief, but has difficulty finding it because of the failure to look to the other side. Emotionally, it appears that moment will have no end. Hope shuts down when the emotions are allowed to dictate the length of the circumstance. It’s like throwing oneself into prison, and the sentencing yourself to life. This is especially true for those who don’t fully trust in God.
Circumstances are not eternal; but God is!
You have to allow God to insert Himself into any crisis you may face. Do not allow your emotions to make a crisis more real than God. Instead, look to God and see what He is doing in the situation. Every moment has a shelf life. Each one become part of the past. Long term thinking looks to the result of what God is doing in the midst of a situation. Even when it is difficult to see what He’s up to in the moment, we have to trust that He’s working behind the scenes. Even though we don’t see everything He’s accomplishing in our life, we must maintain the belief that God is good, and because He is good, He will work all thing out for the good (see Romans 8:28). Remember, His mercy endures forever.
God is not limited by time as we are limited. He created time and uses it in relation to our eternal destiny. Our emotions may tell us that “It’s over; it’s tool late,” but it’s never over until God says it’s over. One lesson we can learn from the raising of Lazarus from the dead is that it is never too late for God (see John 11:1-45). Regardless of where we find ourselves in a particular moment, it will never be too late for Him to work things out.
