I stumbled to my laptop. “Might as well read my emails.” I thought.
You see, I woke up this morning after one of those nights. Fitful sleep. A night filled with weary tossing and turning, in my mind—and in my heart.
I was haunted by faces. Stony faces from yet one more encounter with folks who just don’t “get” where I’ve come from, and worse yet, where I want to go; what I want to accomplish for the weary and wounded.
It was a meeting that left me feeling like, “What’s the use?”
I was having real trouble “seeing the good” in the situation.
But, as usual, God was, “Reading my mail.” while I read my emails.
For those who haven’t heard that expression before, it means God was reading my unexpressed thoughts and emotions.
And, as usual, He was way ahead of me.
He knew that meeting would wake the old “sleeping dogs” of doubting myself, my hopes and dreams; Him. And yes, I was again wondering, “Why do I even try? Why don’t I just let it go? Do I need this?”
Then, I opened a couple of emails.
The first one I share is from Greg Laurie Ministries titled,
Don’t Give Up
One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. (Luke 18:1 NLT)
I prayed for more than thirty years for my mother to come to Christ. I was beginning to wonder if God would ever hear my prayer. But He did. It was all in His timing. The Bible says, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT).
We don’t want to rush things. We don’t want to run ahead of the Lord, and we don’t want to lag behind Him. We want His perfect will in His perfect timing. But we have to be persistent in prayer.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 NKJV) Notice the ascending intensity Jesus used with the words ask, seek, and knock.
We start by asking God. Then we go to the next level: We’re seeking. We’re not going to give up on it. Finally we’re knocking. We’re pounding on the door. We’re not taking no for an answer. We have to be persistent in our prayers. We don’t want to give up.
If the request is wrong, God says no. If the timing is wrong, God says slow. If you are wrong, God says grow. But if the request is right and the timing is right and you are right, God says go.
We don’t always know what the will of God is, but I think when we’re praying for the salvation of a loved one, when we’re praying for our country to have a spiritual awakening (we urgently need that), when we’re praying for God’s will in our lives, we can’t back down. We can’t give up.
We have to keep asking. We have to keep seeking. We have to keep knocking. Then, the Bible says, the door will be opened.
Copyright © 2018 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Then I opened Max’s email.
When You Are Low on Hope
by Max Lucado
Water. All Noah can see is water. The evening sun sinks into it. The clouds are reflected in it. His boat is surrounded by it. Water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the west. Water.
He sent a raven on a scouting mission; it never returned. He sent a dove. It came back shivering and spent, having found no place to roost. Then, just this morning, he tried again. With a prayer he let it go and watched until the bird was no bigger than a speck on a window.
All day he looked for the dove’s return.
Now the sun is setting, and the sky is darkening, and he has come to look one final time, but all he sees is water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the …
You know the feeling. You have stood where Noah stood. You’ve known your share of floods. Flooded by sorrow at the cemetery, stress at the office, anger at the disability in your body or the inability of your spouse. You’ve seen the floodwater rise, and you’ve likely seen the sun set on your hopes as well. You’ve been on Noah’s boat.
And you’ve needed what Noah needed; you’ve needed some hope. You’re not asking for a helicopter rescue, but the sound of one would be nice. Hope doesn’t promise an instant solution but rather the possibility of an eventual one. Sometimes all we need is a little hope.
That’s all Noah needed. And that’s all Noah received.
Here is how the Bible describes the moment: “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf!” (Genesis 8:11).
An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have the bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after a flood. Proof to the dreamer that dreaming is worth the risk.
To all the Noah’s of the world, to all who search the horizon for a fleck of hope, Jesus proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes. He comes as a dove. He comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of hope.
Have you received yours? Don’t think your ark is too isolated. Don’t think your flood is too wide. Receive his hope, won’t you? Receive it because you need it. Receive it so you can share it.
What do you suppose Noah did with his? What do you think he did with the leaf? Did he throw it overboard and forget about it? Do you suppose he stuck it in his pocket and saved it for a scrapbook? Or do you think he let out a whoop and assembled the troops and passed it around like the Hope Diamond it was?
Certainly he whooped. That’s what you do with hope. What do you do with olive leaves? You pass them around. You don’t stick them in your pocket. You give them to the ones you love. Love always hopes. “Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7 NKJV, emphasis mine).
Love has hope in you.
The aspiring young author was in need of hope. More than one person had told him to give up. “Getting published is impossible,” one mentor said. “Unless you are a national celebrity, publishers won’t talk to you.” Another warned, “Writing takes too much time. Besides, you don’t want all your thoughts on paper.”
Initially he listened. He agreed that writing was a waste of effort and turned his attention to other projects. But somehow the pen and pad were bourbon and Coke to the wordaholic. He’d rather write than read. So he wrote. How many nights did he pass on that couch in the corner of the apartment reshuffling his deck of verbs and nouns? And how many hours did his wife sit with him? He wordsmithing. She cross-stitching. Finally a manuscript was finished. Crude and laden with mistakes but finished.
She gave him the shove. “Send it out. What’s the harm?”
So out it went. Mailed to fifteen different publishers. While the couple waited, he wrote. While he wrote, she stitched. Neither expecting much, both hoping everything. Responses began to fill the mailbox. “I’m sorry, but we don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts.” “We must return your work. Best of luck.” “Our catalog doesn’t have room for unpublished authors.”
I still have those letters. Somewhere in a file. Finding them would take some time. Finding Denalyn’s cross-stitch, however, would take none. To see it, all I do is lift my eyes from this monitor and look on the wall. “Of all those arts in which the wise excel, nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well.”
She gave it to me about the time the fifteenth letter arrived. A publisher had said yes. That letter is also framed. Which of the two is more meaningful? The gift from my wife or the letter from the publisher? The gift, hands down. For in giving the gift, Denalyn gave hope.
Love does that. Love extends an olive leaf to the loved one and says, “I have hope in you.”
Love is just as quick to say, “I have hope for you.”
You can say those words. You are a flood survivor. By God’s grace you have found your way to dry land. You know what it’s like to see the waters subside. And since you do, since you passed through a flood and lived to tell about it, you are qualified to give hope to someone else.
From A Love Worth Giving: Living in the Overflow of God’s Love
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2002) Max Lucado
For those of you who may be in Noah’s boat…
(Like I am sometimes!)
- Don’t give up.
- Don’t quit.
- Keep on praying, and hoping against hope.
“This certain hope of being saved is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls, connecting us with God himself behind the sacred curtains of heaven,” Hebrews 6:19 TLB
“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.” Hebrews 11:1 TLB
God sees you. He hears you. God knows your heart. You hang in there. (I will, too!) God is working. He will not fail us. Let’s just trust Him to show us what’s next, okay?
Okay.
P.S. (Thanks Greg! Thanks Max. Thanks for your faithfulness.)
And, oh yeah, this just showed up in my email:
So, “Thanks!” Timothy Hegerich of Sweet Sweet Sounds…
Carpe Diem guys! You give us all HOPE!
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23 NIV
Women With Destiny 