You ever give up hope of something ever happening?
There’s an episode recorded about a woman who had noticed that a prophet would travel to the town where she lived. She suggested to her husband that it would be good to set up a room for him so that he had somewhere decent to stay when he was in town. The level of hospitality that the prophet experienced was so good that he felt he needed to offer her something. In exploring her situation he found out that although she had desperately wanted one, she was still childless. Hearing about this, the prophet called for her and announced that she would have a baby – doubtful as she was and at the same time overwhelmed by the gesture, the woman asked the prophet not to raise her hopes. Sure enough, however, not long after that prophetic encounter, the woman delivered a baby boy from her womb. The hospitality offered prepared the ground for her experience of a miracle.
There are decent people who are looking for a miracle of their own. The return of a wayward child. The employment situation to turn in their favour after a long time without work. The healing of a loved one who has suffered from a debilitating illness. The resolution of a toxic marriage affecting those around the couple especially the children. The friend would be able to quit their crippling drug habit. The neighbour would stop gambling away all the income time and again leaving his children struggling to find food to live on. The physical and verbal abuse they have to endure night after night would come to an end. The rejection from this society because they are fleeing from persecution in their own home country. The arguments that made former friends into bitter enemies would subside to renew the kinship. The heartache over a long-term relationship that ended in betrayal would be mended.
So many private tormenting circumstances and people are jaded and cynical of offers to make things better because the impression just appears that things are getting worse. So many personal hells that people want to escape from but all they seem to be offered are all too brief escapes before returning to the situation.
People have heard the sales pitch before and at first they were susceptible to the fantasies. Now they are hardened to any offer. They don’t want their hopes to be raised again. They don’t want to suffer from the fall of far too many broken promises and misleading pledges. Better to stay in their misery than to make matters worse by acting like a gullible fool and falling for the next attractive trend about what can solve their problems. Better to stay in the pit of misery they know, than to be plunged into a deeper pit of despair because they climbed the ladder of false hopes.
Under these circumstances, the proposal of seeing light make a change in the darkness, the offer of life entering to defeat death, the extended branch of peace in the middle of hurt and confusion seems hard to take and yet so much longed for. This is exactly the change that the Kingdom of God offers. It is exactly the testimony that people of all ages and backgrounds across time can state for themselves. They can point to those experiences where the gloom lifted, their burdens were taken away and their sorrow turned to joy. they can talk about how sick they were, how lonely they were, how broken they were until they came into contact with the Prince of Peace.
Hopes are not raised as a set up to be dashed. It’s not wishful and fanciful thinking about serious matters affecting life and death. This is referring people’s hopes on the one who has overcome the world – even death itself. He has emerged triumphant over every effort to defeat Him and now there is an offer to raise your hopes to the life-giver who still reaches people’s situations however desperate and seemingly impossible and lets the radiant light of life shine on the situation.
We need the boldness and courage to refer to that Life-Giver and witness those life-changing occurrences when even after we’re told not to raise hopes, we offer them something they never though possible because of Him. We want people to experience those expressions of the Kingdom breaking through in power and for people to likewise pledge allegiance over all things to the only rule that can change lives for the better forever.
We know we need the change, loving Father. We raise the people’s hopes to you. Make the change and let it start with us.
(Photo by James Douglas on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 