Hope Bursting from Sorrow

Psalm 42:1-5

Verse 5  Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

    We tend to think of hope from a positive and cheery viewpoint, but is that the only place that hope can be found?  No, of course not.  The thing we often forget about hope is that it shouldn’t be tied to our circumstances.

    Hope is an outlook.  A choice made about how to look at life.  But it isn’t just a mere choice made with nothing to back it up.  Sure the world has their version of hope which is based on their desires for life, but as God’s people our hope must be based on Him.  We have a book full of examples of people who put their hope in the Lord and the ways He guided them, so why are we slow to put our hope fully in Him?

    This psalm may have been written during the exile, a time when hope seemed slim of seeing their beloved homeland again.  They knew the only reason they may see it again was because He decided they should.  Their hope had to be in Him because He is the only one who could make it happen.  They knew it had to be His doing because it was their doing that had taken them into exile.  Like their ancestor who had opposed Moses and was punished by God, their generation had not followed God as they knew they should and they were paying the price.

    Our key verse for the day seems to show some self-correction.  If we are dealing with these emotions, we need to get our focus off from self and put it back on God.  There can be hope in the dark times of life, but only if our eyes are set on Him.  This hope takes root in God and He is unshakeable.  Hope places our hearts in His will and plan, allowing us the freedom to lay down our cares at His feet knowing those things don’t have the final say in our lives.

    Hope is knowing that He has a bigger plan than we can know or understand.  While we are trudging through the difficulties of life, He is seeing how they are polishing us if we are letting Him be our focus.

Making It Personal

    How hard do find it to have hope when life is hard?  Does that level of difficulty reflect how much you focus on Him?  What are you going to do to change that?

Making It Personal Kids

    How hard is it for you to have hope when things aren’t going your way?  How much time do you spend focusing on Jesus?  Would looking at Jesus more help you have more hope?

Closing Prayer

    Father, thank You for the hope we can have in You.  Help us learn to focus on You so we don’t lose our grasp of hope.  In Jesus’ name, amen.