inspiration

Hopeful vs. Hopeless

Hopeful or hopeless? (New Wine Women’s Day Reflection 4)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit Rom 15:13

Christie Wimber “The enemy can’t take away your promise so he’ll try to take away your hope. Live in the promise of what God has spoken”

How often does God speaks to us about something and we feel enthused and full of hope. He lifts our heart and our soul and we feel back on track. Then only a short while later we’re questioning ourselves…”Did God really say that?” “Was I just hearing what I want to hear?” “Maybe I heard wrong”. God’s Word does not dilute over time. His words last forever. If He makes a promise to you He will keep that promise.

It’s the enemy that wants you to question that Word, to doubt it ever happened, to worry, to lose heart. Here’s where we have to be strong and say to ourselves “Be still my soul and trust in God”. We need to make a choice to live in what we know He has shown us and when we’re struggling with doubt we need to worship and keep on thanking God for what He IS doing, because even if we can’t see anything yet, we can be sure He is DEFINITELY at work.

I love the picture that was going around on Facebook recently (above) with the two rabbits that are growing carrots. The one that has little growth on the top is all forlorn and the one with lots of green growth on top looks very pleased with himself. However, under the ground the carrot of the rabbit with little greenery on top is HUGE! He just can’t see it yet!

Take heart today and make a choice to put your hope in God, who will NEVER let you down.

 

Faith or Fear? (New Wine Women’s Day Reflection 3)

Choose today to walk in faith or fear.

As Christy Wimber shared ” Faith is the capacity to trust God when there are no answers. God speaks a promise and we have to persevere through the problems to see it come to fruition. We have to make the choice to persevere.
We need to choose which to walk in
…faith or fear”.

I love the part in Disney’s Finding Nemo when the whale has told Dory and Marlin to go to the back of his mouth. Marlin is so worried because he has no idea what will happen and is holding onto the whale’s tongue for dear life! He’s afraid.  Fear disables us. It stops us from becoming all we can be. It stops us from progressing. Dory’s great advice to him is to “Let go!” As he does, he falls only for a second as he trusts and is blown to freedom through the whale’s blow hole. I imagine his stomach would be flipping as is ours when we take a leap of faith, but as we trust in the unfailing power of God the feeling of freedom is incredible and the peace which comes through it is irreplaceable.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind – 2Tim 1:17