Hope For The Hurting Series

Finding Hope

Hope for the Hurting

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I’d like to share with you today something that has been on my heart concerning this whole issue of hope, because we’re living in a world of lost hope, a world where hope seems to be in short supply.

This is something that became personal with me several years back when my brother put a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.

My brother was a remarkable man. He was smart, funny, loving, caring, and giving. If there was a need, he always wanted to fix it.

So what happened? Why couldn’t he fix what was going on inside of him? As much as I knew my brother, I really don’t know why, and there’s no way for me to know, or for that matter anyone to know. So let me share with you what I do know.

The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, this is where my brother was at, and unfortunately never got to the second part of this verse that says, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12 NKJV)

When hope is lost, when our dreams are shattered, or left dormant and undeveloped being imprisoned by our character, manipulated or paralyzed by other people’s opinion and actions, broken due to heartbreak, or hidden beneath the shattered ruins of past mistakes and sins, we become attacked by the dreaded “D’s,” that is, despair, discouragement depression, and death.

This was my brother’s story. He had great dreams, wonderful plans of what he wanted to do and become in life, but life got the best of him and got in his way, and he didn’t know what to do or which way to go. And so, he turned to what most people turn to during these times, and it’s one of the things that does the greatest damage and exasperates the problem, and that is, he turned to alcohol. For others it may be drugs or any other number of addictions that people turn to.

But this doesn’t need to be the end of the story. God has great dreams and plans for our lives, dreams to give everyone a future and a hope. And so once again, I go to my go to verse about the hope that God gives.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV)

This is what we’re all looking for as we wonder about what our future holds, and so we look for some type of hope, to get us through these uncertain times.

As I was thinking about what to write for my brother’s funeral the pad of paper I pulled out had these words already written at the top, “Hope Springs Eternal.” In other words, there is always hope. When things seem hopeless, hope springs eternal, there is always hope.

The classic example of someone who would have had no hope for their future would have been Abraham from the Old Testament. Family was big in those days, and having sons and daughters showed prosperity and God’s blessings. But Abraham had no children because not only was his wife, Sarah, barren, but they were well past their ability to have children, with both of them being over 90 years old.

But this didn’t stop Abraham from having hope. Look at Abraham’s testimony.

It says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations” (Romans 4:18)

Looking at his circumstances Abraham could have easily given up all hope, but contrary to, that is, opposite of his human instincts, Abraham held onto hope, because his hope was in God, not in the circumstances. Instead of turning to wine to numb his lost hope, he turned to God and remembered His promises, knowing that God’s promises are always true.

And so his hope was in God, and he continued to believe in Him, thus living his life to the fullest, giving his frustrations and fears over to the Lord, knowing that God’s thoughts and plans for his life was that of peace and not of evil, to give to him a future and a hope, not leaving him hopeless.

God created all of us and put inside us a dream. You could say that God created us with a divine design in mind. While it may not be evident to us right now, especially with everything that is going on, it is there nonetheless, and to get this divine design we can’t leave the designer, that is the Lord God, behind. It is in Him and Him alone where all hope for life comes from. And it is from Him that hope springs eternal, because He is the Eternal One.