The Clay of Hope, Mold It Well

Walking around in the mall or in a grocery store, sometimes you look at people’s faces, and many of them seem very sad. Some have a vacant look in their eyes, as if they’ve never heard of hope, or have very little of it in their lives. It makes you wonder if they’ve at one time had dreams and aspirations, only to face incredible disappointment. It could be that they’ve had their hearts broken over a marriage that fell apart. Maybe it was a failed family relationship, a betrayal, or an unfulfilled dream. Because of the hurt and pain, they decided it was better to expect the worse than to hope. Perhaps they thought the disappointment of failure or of things not working out wouldn’t be nearly as devastating if they always aimed low. Approaching life this way stunts our faith, and this is one of the reasons we see so many sad people. They are walking around afraid to hold positive and great expectations for their lives, because they haven’t learned how to anchor their hope in Jesus Christ.

Hope is a lively and joyous expectation. It’s when you’re so convinced that something good is going to happen, that things like doubt and fear don’t have a chance of slipping in sideways. In Romans 15:13(NLT), God tells us through the Apostle Paul how we ought to be praying when it comes to hope. This verse says, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Our Heavenly Father is the God of hope. He is the very foundation on which all our hope is built. Since He, and He alone, is the author of it, He can and will replenish our souls with hope as we place our trust in Him.

When we veer off the path and head south of Romans 15:13, this is where we get into trouble. Proverbs 3:5-6(NKJV) tells us to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Heavenly Father is the One that directs our paths, but often we don’t place our hope in Him, but instead, we allow our emotions to be our navigational system. If our emotions tell us to feel down because of something that has transpired in our past, we comply and feel sad. If our emotions tell us to be angry with a person about something they did to us two months ago, we will hold a grudge and let bitterness and resentment rule our hearts.

It’s very dangerous business to allow our emotions to have governmental authority over our lives. God has given us free-will, and it’s our responsibility to decide how we’re going to feel. We can choose to believe what God says in His Word about who we are, what we can do, and what we can have; or we can abdicate our standing in Christ and continue to allow the enemy to steal our joy. Nehemiah 8:10 declares that the joy of the Lord is our strength. So, it becomes a question of where we’re going to place our faith. Will we place it on our emotions and feelings and make them the focus or will we let our trust in God be our focus? This is an obvious choice. God deserves our focus continually.

Romans 5:5(NLT) says, “And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” God has given us the very best clay of which to shape and mold our lives. The hope that He’s given us through Christ does not disappoint, so we don’t have to walk around with our heads hanging low. The Holy Spirit has filled our hearts to the brim with God’s love. This isn’t fairytale stuff; this is the real deal. Our reality is what God says it is, not what we feel like it is. We must line up our thoughts, attitudes, and conversations so they reflect the truth. We can’t have a negative attitude and expect to manifest the positives of God’s Word. We must make the decision to have a positive attitude, and our emotions will catch up with our decision to be obedient to God.

Negative thoughts and words are always a magnet for toxic people, circumstances, and relationships. Many of us draw these things to us because we speak and think the worse, and we don’t expect the goodness of God to overtake our lives; it will if we allow it. Our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the Master Potter. Because of his life and sacrifice, you and I have the clay of hope of which to mold and shape a great life. We can give back to him the same clay of hope he has given us. 1Peter 1:3 tells us to take the time to consider what an awesome God we serve, and how blessed and favored we are to know Him. He is the Father of our Master Jesus, and because Jesus was raised from the dead, we have everything to live for. Because of the hope Christ has given us, we have extraordinary tools and materials to build a life, and we should do our very best to get busy using them. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“The Clay of Hope, Mold It Well” by Alexandra Copeland. Copyright© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.