Photos by Pixabay

This photo reminded me of the song, “He’s got the whole world in His hands”.  This was quite a popular song when I was young and I loved to sing it.  Seeing the photo reminded me of the truth of the song; indeed, He has the whole world in His hands.

Today I listened to a mp3 about hope.  Oh my, it stirred up something in me that kind of turned my world upside down.

Let me start at the beginning.  I had some time today with a dear friend and she asked me how things have been in my life recently.  Well, that question kind of unlocked something in me and what came pouring out without any thought on my part was the stress and heaviness of the past few weeks.  In other words, I dumped on her.  She prayed with me.  All was good.

I ran home to start a pot of chicken soup to share with a sick neighbor.  As I chopped up veggies for the soup, I turned on the message about hope.  An hour later, not only was my soup gently simmering on the stove-top but my spirit had been transformed.  Not two hours earlier I had been caught up in details of life, worn down, and weary from the fight.  Now, my spirit absolutely soared!

In this recording, I was reminded that while the messages of the Bible seemed heavy as you take them one at a time, we were given the Bible, the written Word of God, as a testament of hope.  There’s hope in every story.  Period.  I don’t care where you land in the Word of God, each message bears hope.  People faced with dire circumstances, we are told, ended in victory.  Was the victory necessarily that which was prayed for?  No.  Often the victory was a total surprise.  Sometimes the victory was something so far from the where the story began, it seems almost ridiculous.

Noah, a believer in God, told to build a boat in a time when there had never been rain.  And not just a boat, but a container for a zoo of all creation!  Rahab, a prostitute, the only one saved from a city of non-believers because she believed in some men who broke into her condo!  Abraham, credited as a friend of God, chosen as the father of more people than the counted stars and yet, he was a man with no children when the promise was given.  Esther, a Jewish woman, chosen as the queen of a king in a hostile kingdom, receives favor from her husband against all odds, and saves her entire nation.  I could go on and on.  Dire circumstances all to each involved and yet God turned each one into a victory.  And that’s just four stories out of the Old Testament!

The Bible.  A book given to us as a source of hope.  And yet, it is so easy to become completely entwined with our own circumstances and fall into the trap of believing there is no way through.  Oh what a tale the enemy of our souls can spin!

As I listened today to this message of hope, I found my spirits lifting.  Why?  Because the God of the Universe has the whole world in His hands!  I haven’t taken the time to discover how many stories of hope are contained in the Bible, but I know there are a lot.  My story, and your story, are each just as much a part of the unfolding tale of God’s people as those told in the Bible.  No matter what we face, there is hope.  Why?  Because God has us in His hands.

Whether we believe this or not, it is true.  He absolutely has you and me in His hands of love.  It is the unfolding story of love between a Creator and His creation.  My current situation, and yours, is an opportunity for Him to show His abounding love toward us.  He has a way through and probably, just as soon as I can muster the strength to realize the hope of the situation, He will bring about an amazing end.  It’s His way.

When the mp3 was over today, I felt both elation and disappointment.  Elation in being brought back from a place of believing the lies the enemy had been telling me about my situations.  Disappointment that I had been believing such things as,  “you can’t help”, “you don’t have very much faith, do you?”, “you’re not very good at helping others”, “I don’t know what to do”, and so on that had been hammering away at my soul lately.

Today my spirit screamed back, “NO, my Lord is watching over me, and He is absolutely going to help me through this place of uncertainty because that is His nature – He loves me, He cares for me, and He will turn all this to good,” because He loves me.  I am part of His creation and the Creator loves that which He creates!

Today, I pray Lord, that You will forgive me for sinking into myself.  I lost sight of Your hope in my situation.  While I don’t know the outcomes Lord, You do.  And all my outcomes are hopeful in You because You love me, You always have my good in mind, and You care about all involved, probably more than even I do if truth be told.  Thank you Lord for sending this message to me today.  It was the slap I needed to jolt me out of the dark and dire plans of the enemy and back into a place of realizing that nothing catches You by surprise.  You are for me and even this is something You can certainly handle.  Help me Lord to always remember there is hope because You have me in the palm of Your loving hand!