Hope During Difficult Times

Many of those I know are expressing increased concern, worry, and bewilderment about what is happening not only in the world but in their personal lives as well. All of us would like to feel that we’re in control, and when it seems as if this control is slipping away, some of us panic. Through the Apostle Paul, God tells us in Philippians 4:6(NLT), “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” In this verse, Heavenly Father provides invaluable instruction about how to deal with worry and fear. He tells us that our first course of action should be to pray to Him. Our Heavenly Father never steers us wrong and only gives us the very best information. So, if He tells us to pray about everything, we can be assured that this is the very best that can be done.

Everything in our world today seems very complex and tedious. Our propensity as humans is to become overly enamored and impressed with our own intellect. It’s true that we’ve invented some pretty nifty contraptions and made incredible technological advances, but these things are only possible because of the groundwork laid by our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. God is the Source of all things, and were it not for His supreme intelligence, nothing we see today would be possible. We make the mistake of thinking that our tangled webs of trouble and confusion are too intricately woven, and that God won’t or can’t be bothered to undo the mess. Because of this kind of thinking, we see the plain and simple truth reflected in God’s instruction in Philippians 4:16 as too good to be true. We say to ourselves, “That’s it! I can’t believe it’s that simple. There must be something else to it.” In our minds, God’s simple solution doesn’t seem to match the complexity of our problems, but this is a vantage point that doesn’t track with the hope in Christ we are required to have.

Time and time again, God shows us in His Word that our response to the events and experiences of life carry our beliefs within them. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that a person ends up being the sum total of what he or she thinks. It’s the inward calculations and maneuverings that outwardly reflect who the person really is. There are many examples of individuals in the public eye, as well as all around us, and they look as if they’ve got it all together. This is what they want everyone to believe because, let’s face it, we all want to appear as though we’ve got it going on. Society promotes this. It rewards those who look and act a certain way and seeks to discount those who don’t measure up to the world’s standards.

Often, we’ll see that the persona people have portrayed doesn’t quite match reality. They’ve paid more attention to superficial things and have ignored the condition of their hearts and souls.  Whenever we think we have to meet the standards that society feels is attractive, successful, glamourous, or worthy; we put ourselves in a kind of prison. We allow our self-worth to be determined by outside influences. When we do this, we can’t help but to ignore the treasure that exists inside us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 3:6 (NLT) says, “But Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.” Hope means that we are confident in our expectations of Christ even though we don’t have a lot of knowledge about the details or how things will turn out. We can hope and pray for a wonderful outcome, not because we understand everything, but because we know that God never fails. Hebrews 3:6 is telling us that we must keep a firm grip on our confident hope in Christ. Up until this point, when most of us encounter a problem, we go into our own heads to try to figure things out, but God desires that we lean on Him and not our own understanding. In and of ourselves, we don’t have it together, but Romans 15:13 tells us that Heavenly Father is the God of hope. He will fill us with joy and peace, and as we believe totally in God’s love and power, His Spirit will keep us continually infused with confident hope. ■

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.

“Hope During Difficult Times” by Alexandra Copeland. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.