Hope

This morning as I woke early – before 6am – I realised that the light was already starting to come into the day. There was a hazy moon but I could see the clouds blowing past it, as the wind is still quite strong. February is in its last week and the days are lengthening.

That gives me hope.

A verse I have written here before is

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

Words of hope

I was thankful for the earlier light this morning and I was also thankful for something I read. A woman who had spent 10 years living with a debilitating virus and becoming wheelchair dependent- just after she had asked God for a healing ministry and a husband to share that with – finally found her personal healing, the ministry she had asked for and a loving husband. She was then 50.

She wrote about her years of waiting and disappointment. She also shared two more verses of scripture that had sustained her when her hope was very thin. Here they are:

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart’s desires.

Psalm 37:4

I can testify to the power of that word in my life when I was waiting for fulfilment of something important to me. This one was also an encouragement:

For the Lord God is our sun and shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.

Psalm 84:11

The Goodness of God

God is good. And I have been believing in the power of another word of scripture as I wait for fulfilment of some other hopes in my own life.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Psalm 27:13

Encouraging signs

Many of us are hoping and praying for many people to turn to God. What we sometimes call “revival”. Although revival may also be about the church that sleeps! See my post on Revival.

When we were out with our caravan recently (as I explained in an earlier post called Adventure) we saw some very hopeful signs of young men being rescued from the pits of despair by our wonderful, merciful God.

Persistent faithful prayer through the ages has prepared hearts.

The links to the first two videos are here:

The videos are each about 6 minutes long.

Hope revives the heart!

My own heart – and Roger’s too – has been given a burst of new energy by the stories of hope that we discovered. We are now editing the filmed testimonies of two young men who we met a couple of weeks ago; Victor and Lee. Those testimonies will be ready soon; both young men were also recently baptised by full immersion in an outdoor pool!

A Prayer

Father, we come to You in faith, believing in Your goodness and Your faithfulness. As we see the signs of Spring 2022 beginning, the light increasing and the daffodils appearing, we ask You again to fulfil the desires of our hearts and our long held hopes. You are mighty to save; great in deliverance. We ask for many, many people to truly find Your salvation in their brokenness and pain. We give You all the glory as we ask for our own personal prayers to be answered, too. And we thank You for giving us Your son Jesus and for the power of Your Spirit and Your Word on earth today.