Encouragement

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“For the God on the mountain is still God in the valley. When things go wrong, He'll make it right. And the God of the good times is still God in the bad times. The God of the day is still God in the night.”
—God of the Mountain, Tracy Dartt

Many Christians are comfortable relating to God when things are going well and life is unfolding according to plan. Many even enjoy relating to Him when fighting certain battles—praying, trusting, and hoping firmly in Him. But life is not as blissful when things are not going as expected, or when an important part of life spirals out of control. For example, when a mother suddenly loses her children to civil authorities or to a divorce, or when the breadwinner of a family suddenly finds himself out of work and unable to pay bills, or when a woman suddenly loses a longstanding marriage and family.

People in these types of situations find themselves faced with an unexpected sense of loss and confusion; life may have been going on well and predictably and then suddenly … a devastating loss ...

Even if we are spared devastating situations, what do we do when faced with lesser storms that leave us feeling lost and confused? What do we do when we place every detail of our lives in God’s hand, but fail to see progress in one area or another? Do we give up and walk away, try to fix things on our own, or stand still?

If this is your reality today, I encourage you to hold on to HOPE, for light will dawn at the end of the tunnel. There may be no proof of progress or resolution in your situation right now, but the Lord assures us that there is hope for the weary and the wandering.

In his affliction, Job said, “At least there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoot will not fail. Its root may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.” (Job 14:7-9 NIV). Although he did not believe this to be true for his own situation, it was! From his life and other examples in the Bible, we learn that God does bring life to that which seems dead. He breathes on hopeless situations and brings them to life in an instant! So, in the midst of our perplexing and seemingly hopeless circumstances, let us plant seeds of hope--not random hope, but hope in God. Romans 5:5 assures us that such hope—built on the foundation of our relationship with Him through Christ, and birthed through suffering—does not put to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (NIV).

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