Hope Your Horses

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)Everyone of us knows something about hope and disappointment. The more our hopes come true the more hopeful we become, the less our hopes are realized the more negativity, cynicism, and other sicknesses of the heart gain a grip on us.It is good to be hopeful, to be a person of hope. Hope is beautiful like the blossoms of spring, it is full of life like green grass or leaves on a tree, it has a freshness to it like the air after a rain. One of the things that will endure forever is hope, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love …”  1 Corinthians 13:13 (NLT). Heaven will be a place filled with unending hope, but we do not have to wait until we get there to live out of the hope that is part of what makes heaven glorious. There is hope for today and tomorrow; there is hope in grief and sorrow; there is hope in loss and pain; there is hope amidst confusion and questions; there always is hope for those who love and know Jesus Christ and who know how to dwell in the presence of the Almighty, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! … The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.  Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you” Psalm 33:6-8, 13-22 (ESV).It does make a difference what we hope for and who or what we look to anchor that hope in, what “horse” you’re betting on. The truth is, when it comes to hope there is just one “horse” that is able to carry our hopes today, tomorrow, and for all of eternity. Hope needs someone who is strong, someone who can, who is able, who is merciful, gracious, and compassionate, and there is no one who has all of these in greater abundance than the one who can even raise the dead, Jesus Christ.I challenge you to go check on your hopes today, on the horses in the in your “hope corral”. Who or what are the horses you hope in? Can any of them carry your hopes better than Christ, God can? Who are you waiting on to carry your hopes?To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans