Author: Hope Surrendered

Finding Hope in Honor

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 4 Comments

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He’s given us free will. Volition. Life’s choices are up to us.

Why do we struggle with them so much? Why do the choices seem so hard?

The world often comes at us with a set of choices different from where He might lead us in His Word. In reading His Word, we can be assured that it has always been this way. Despite our desire to imagine that life was easier in the “good old days,” those days — even back to Biblical civilizations — were full of struggles with life’s choices.

A few decades ago, the “What Would Jesus Do?” movement began. Bracelets and messages imprinted with “WWJD?” were everywhere and gave some of us pause before proceeding in our free will.

So how do we, as Believers, walk through our days today making the “right” choices? Everyone has a method. I’m not an expert on this subject, as I still struggle with it myself (what Believer doesn’t?), but I have my own WWJD method.

The last few years of my life have been rough ones. I’ve faced adversity, circumstances and choices I never could have imagined I’d have to face. My challenges are probably different from yours, but they are no more or less difficult in my life’s context as your challenges are in your life’s context. My journey of surrendering my hopes to the Lord has brought some of you into my life — some of you struggling with divorce, abuse, infertility, cancer, the death of a child or spouse, infidelity, depression, traumatic brain injury, miscarriage, rape, loss of purpose, bankruptcy, military injury and so much more.

Your struggle is valid. My struggle is valid. It is in our struggles that we can be defined, or we can be refined.

Psalm 66:10 says, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”

I am one who believes that the possibility of refinement exists in the trials and tests we are allowed to experience. The positive or negative outcome from these tests is often determined by our perspective.

I don’t ask “WWJD?,” but I do challenge myself and hold myself to a standard that I try to meet in my free-will choices.

As I walk through my days, my struggles, my hopes, my sadness and my joys, I strive to be God-honoring in my choices, words, actions, and deeds. These four words…

      • choices
      • words
      • actions
      • deeds

…have been an instrumental part of the hope which has gotten me through the thousands of decisions I’ve had to wade through over my struggles of the last few years.

A few months ago, a mentor of mine challenged me to take it one more step. He suggested that I add “thoughts.”

Profound.

Very profound.

I added it.

So today, my list, my method, my goal, my lifestyle attempt is:

To prayerfully be God-honoring in my choices, words, actions, deeds and thoughts.

Oh, what a blessing has been produced by being refined on His terms and in His timing!

Monday’s Musings, A New Week & Soapy Fingernails

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Welcome to a new week! Thanks for venturing into it with me!

Last weekend, I wrote about paddleboarding — you can read that here:  http://wp.me/p1oeLN-2I. I know the subject didn’t quite fit into the rest of the writings I’ve shared, but I was (and still am) looking for a way to throw in some tidbits outside of faith-based hope writings of the week. So…welcome to a new week!

Monday’s Musings? Wonderings from the Weekend? I need a title. Any suggestions?

My plan — my hope — is to start the week by offering up a lighter post that goes along with something I experienced, did, thought about, etc., at some point during the previous week or weekend. I don’t know it it’ll work out, but I’m going to try to get my hands dirty at trying it.

Speaking of getting my hands dirty…

The rains have been abundant in this part of the country, which has led to my garden being just a tad neglected. I’ve been behind in my weeding. With a break in the weather this past week, I decided to head out to the garden and take on the task of weeding.

I wear gardening gloves for planting and digging, but I feel like they hinder my ability to pull weeds, so I often don’t use them for this task. This presents a dilemma when it’s time to clean up.

Dirt under the fingernails.

So this week, I tried a little experiment. I got an old bar of soap, and I scratched my fingernails into it before venturing out to the garden. This bar of soap will stay with my gardening tools, as it’s not very pretty anymore.

For the most part, it worked. When I was finished, I used a nailbrush on my dirty fingernails, and the soap that had been under my nails made clean up easier.

The neglected garden gave me a lot more to think about. Friday’s post was a start — you can read that one here:  http://wp.me/p1oeLN-3W  — and you’ll probably see some more of those thoughts in the coming days.

Make it a point to find hope around you this week. It IS there! Enjoy your week!

Finding Patience in Fresh-picked Greens

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The garden has been bursting forth with fresh, leafy lettuce! Salads are a popular meal around our table, but especially when lettuce from our organic garden can be enjoyed.

I don’t have a greenhouse, so where I live, lettuce is ready in the spring long before the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. By the time those are ready, the lettuce is often going to seed in the heat of the summer. By the time the fall lettuce is ready to eat, the tomatoes and cukes are finished.

I wish all of the garden’s delights could be ready at the same time. To solve my challenge, I could spend more time planning the planting schedule, or I could invest in a home greenhouse to have more control over harvest dates. For now, though, it’s enough for me to grow everything organically and to grow everything from organic seeds I started and tended to maturity.

I wonder if God wonders the same about me?

I am sure He beams with pride at His daughter bursting forth with seasons of good deeds and faith-based decisions she’s made after prayerful consideration for her Father’s will and ways. After all, he’s tended to her hopes and her needs as he’s pulled weeds and obstacles out of her path. He’s tenderly shown her how He’s spent time weaving her life together for His good and her good through the tear-filled lessons she’s had to endure.

He’s also lovingly waited on her stubbornness and her selfish bouts of anger and depression to teach her — yet again — that her ways are not His ways. He’s amended the lives of her family and brought about a bountiful harvest despite her hurtful attitude and words that have, at times, wilted their self-esteem.

He knows she’ll come around (he has that ability to see well into her future, you know). He knows He’ll water her life with his Living Water. He knows His Light will shine on her, illuminate her path and be a source of her growth. He knows there will be a day when He’ll be able to tell her she’s been a good and faithful servant.

But…He still has to wait until That Day when all of His pieces, all of His work and all of His pruning will fall together as He planned, allowed and intended. And…while He’s waiting, He knows He won’t be able to enjoy all of His delights in her at the same time — she’s just not capable of that kind of bounty — yet.

Oh, what He must think?  Oh, how patient is He?

The lettuce is ready, and I am thankful to be able to enjoy it. I am also thankful for His patience with me.

Finding Hope in the Healing

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Where is He?

God is present in our hurting. In the depth of our struggle, we don’t always understand how it is that He can allow our hurts.

God is also present in our healing. We often do choose to give Him credit for the healing.

But, where is He when we are at the in-between? When we are taking forward steps and sliding backward in our healing from the hurt, is He there? Do we allow Him to be there to walk with us and lead us along His path?

It is there — at the in-between times — in which we spend so much of our time. The hurt is done. It has forever changed us. We know that we need to move on — to move away from the hurt — yet we keep reliving that pain. This is where we dwell for far too long.

Is He with us when we dwell here? Why do we allow Him in only when we want to ask, “why?” or “why not?” Why do we allow Him to be with us, momentarily, when we want to scold Him for allowing this pain? Why do we often shut Him out?

When we choose to allow Him to be with us every step of the way, we will know from where HOPE comes. We will see His tenderness, His love, His tears shed for our pain, His ways of working our pain toward healing, His hand of protection keeping us from what could have been worse. We will see all of it when we allow Him to be with us.

There is a beautiful worship song called, “Everything” that is sung by Tim Hughes. The song provides a wealth of reflection when sung, when spoken, when studied and when prayed.

Some of the lyrics of this song are:

 “…God in my hoping, there in my dreaming

God in my watching, God in my waiting

God in my laughing, there in my weeping

God in my hurting, God in my healing

Be my everything…

…Christ in me, the hope of glory

You are everything…

…Be my everything…”            

When He is our Everything, we will heal.

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Note:  If you’d like to hear Tim Hughes discuss his song mentioned above, you can do so here:  http://www.praisecharts.com/tim-hughes-discusses-and-sings-his-song-everything-/

Finding Hope through the Temptation

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A few nights ago, I made a fire in the outdoor firepit. Why is it that when you WANT to start a fire, it’s often a challenge to get it going with the newspaper and tinder teepee? People have accidentally burned down their home by smoking in bed or playing with matches, but when you want to get a campfire going, it can be tough!

In any case, I finally did get it going. As I watched the flames slowly build and consume the dry wood, I had some time to reflect. As beautiful as the fire was, my mind was drawn to sin and how it often can consume us if we are not careful.

The wood I used was dry, but not too old. It was a soft wood — not the best for burning in a fire, but it was what I had on-hand after losing some branches to a storm last fall. The bark was still intact, and I could tell there was still a great deal of moisture left in the heart of the wood, as the smoke was thick and pungent, and it took a while for the wood to actually start to burn.

Sin can be like that for us:  it can take some time until we start to burn under the temptation. When we’re a Believer walking with the Lord, we’re not always the easiest target for the prowling lion to devour, but when we suffer some kind of loss or spiritual test of our will, we can be weakened.

That prowling lion is always ready to pounce. He watches for our weaknesses.

When we’re put into the flame, it often takes some time until we give into the sin. We choose to stay in the Word, we spend time in prayer, we ask others to pray for us, and we remind ourselves about the path we are supposed to be on, but if we aren’t careful, we can be slowly overtaken by the sin — much like the wood can be overtaken by the flames.

A fire, when it has fuel, will grow.

Sin, when it has fuel, will grow.

The flames dance around as they change the still-fresh, bark-covered wood into an ashen-covered char. We dance around our temptations. We justify them, and we justify why we can handle them — because we are Believers.

Eventually, the glow of blue, orange, yellow and red takes over the wood, and a seething-hot bed of coals begins to form beneath the wood that stands little chance of survival. For us, we can eventually be worn down from the temptations, from the worldly viewpoint, from our challenges and justifications. Sin provides us with a distraction, a place where we can be different, a place where we can fit in — this is our bed of coals. It is here that we stand little chance to escape unharmed and unchanged.

A dancing fire. An enticing sin.

In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we are told:

“No temptation has overtaken you
except what is common to humanity.
God is faithful,
and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able,
but with the temptation
He will also provide a way of escape
so that you are able to bear it.” (HCSB)

The hope is in the Word. It’s in knowing that there is always a way of escape. Watch those flames!