Yorba Linda Vineyard

Have you ever lost your hope? Have you ever been in a place where you feel like all your hope has disappeared? Or have you ever been with someone and they don’t feel there is anything they can or want to live for? I have and its no fun. I remember walking into Church this week and as I sat down to pray with some others I realized what I had been in and around all week, and it had felt like a war zone. But the minute I sat down to pray I could sense the Lord and therefore, I felt hope and it brought me back to our high need to know, feel and experience hope each day.

We are surrounded by those with no hope. We are bombarded by situations in every day life where hope isn’t even mentioned or an option for some. They just want out. I cannot believe how many people have and are taking their own lives now in the US. Grown men and women who feel the only way forward is death. And some of these I have known and have been in the Church for years. However somewhere along the way they lost hope and to some when hope is no longer they want out as they just cant do life any longer. It’s a horrible place to be. But each of us don’t know what goes on inside people’s heads. We don’t know why all the reasons as to why many around us feel like there’s no hope to keep going, but one thing I do know- a life without hope is no life at all.

So what does it mean exactly to have hope? How important is it in our lives? I have been pondering this over and over in my mind the last several months just because of the personal encounters I’ve had with those that have lost their hope. In fact a few moments where I have found all around me is event after event where sadness has engulfed the room.

Sadness is a part of life. So remembering this isn’t it. This is just the rehearsal the play is coming has definitely been something that’s been on the forefront of my mind again these last several months. So how is it when we encounter tuff things and when we face such sadness do we hold onto hope?

I can truly sense the hope I have when I encounter those that don’t have any. Hope is definitely not over rated. In fact, its just the opposite- its necessary to live. I was just saying yesterday to an old friend how I have no idea how people make it in this life without Jesus. I don’t know how people walk through life without having some hope to hold onto knowing that this life isn’t it. But not only that but that having that hope that rises up from nowhere with a reassurance that whatever were walking through will soon pass but through it we are not alone. We have other options. We have other support.

And we have a hope that is steadfast; a living hope that no one and no thing can take this away from us that know Jesus.

But what happens to those of us that have accepted Jesus yet lose our hope? For whatever reason; a loss of a child; walking through divorce, or watching people suffers? What happens when we know in our head that Jesus is our hope yet for whatever reasons we cant seem to feel or find Him? Not like He’s lost, but more like we cant be found?

What happens when we don’t feel the Lord or feel His presence in the midst of pain? Hope is a feeling of expectation, so what happens when we don’t feel or expect the Lord will be with us?

Hope is so important that when we don’t have it we can actually feel it in our bodies. We can actually feel and experience in our bones, in our muscles when we don’t have that hope to hold on to.

You know in Proverbs 20 where it says, “Hope deferred can make the heart sick, but when desire comes, it’s a tree of life?”

So in other words, our body, our heart gets sick when hope isn’t in the picture. And not only that, but when we realize the dreams, plans and what God has for us is a ‘hope and a future’ as the prophet Jeremiah says, it has the strength to give life in so many ways.

That’s why we meet people and they seem to be unhappy or unsettled. We are made to have hope. We are wired to know that no matter what we face, Gods heart for us is good and He has not forgotten us, nor our dreams of what we desire to see.

When people stop dreaming is when hope can be lost. We’re made to dream. I always know when someone has lost their ability to dream when all they talk about is the past. In fact Proverbs 20 in another version says that it’s ‘when our dreams are fulfilled that it brings us life.’

This life is not just about having a dream; it’s watching it become fulfilled. We have to trust that when God puts a dream inside of us; its not to tease us, but rather to remind and hold onto the fact that what He says will happen. It will come about no matter what the circumstances may look like in the natural God is true to His Word and wants to see your dreams come true even more than you desire them for yourself. So it’s so true that when I have watched people lose hope is because many times they have lost their ability to dream.

But listen God is the one that places desires in our hearts to dream and hope for better and no person, no matter who they are can steal that from you and I unless we allow them.

Don’t allow hope to be deferred- to be put off or separated from you. I’ve been in enough situations where hope is lacking and it’s under rated and depressing at best.

The hope we hold on to is not the hope of this world. We will not have the hope where we can explain everything and understand why things happen the way we do, but we do know this: Hope is Jesus and in Jesus is hope. He is your resting place and He is the one to show you your future. Hold onto Him.

Remember, this is just the rehearsal; the play is coming.

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