Your Hope This September
I was reminded recently of the depth of pain some families are enduring as they care for their medically fragile children. The world talks and thinks of the average, of the norm. It’s September and social media platforms are flooded with back-to-school photos and off-to-college snippets. The average family is packing lunches and traveling to fall sporting events; but not everyone is part of an average family. Not all our Septembers are the same.
For some, calendar months have no relevance. You live by rounds, not months. Some of you live by shifts, not days. Some of you aren’t looking at days of the week but appointment days, therapies days, and off days. And some of you, my dear hurting friends, don’t live by time at all. Time to you is merely a slope down which you are reluctantly being pulled towards an inevitable farewell.
Reality in Life
Life can be such a bitter thing. It can crush; and yet somehow, someway it must be lived. There is simply no trite pep talk I can give to make the suffering less of a reality. There is no bumper-sticker slogan that can alter the pain you wake with day after day. And yet I will never concede that there is no hope. I will never admit that there cannot be some form of joy. I will not because the Bible does not.
You see, the Bible declares unabashedly that there is no heartache too great, no sorrow too deep to overturn the hope that God offers to His redeemed children. Over and over He is calling to us; over and over He reassures. Lift up your heads those who weep. Lift up your hearts those who sorrow; come and see what He has done. Come and glimpse the unwavering hope. Come, be reminded of heaven.
Knowing God
Now I know this will make no sense to those who have no relationship with the God, but I speak to those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. I write to those who know God and are known by Him.
Weary friends, I urge you most passionately to pull down, just for a moment, the walls of the present. Silence the clamor of the here and now. Turn off the social media feed, cast aside the endless stream of the “right now” and look beyond. Remember the promise.
Jesus speaking to His followers said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). This promise is repeated again and again throughout the Bible. It is a promise that this life is not to be the only life the followers of God will live; a promise that restoration is coming. It is a promise of no more tears; a promise of no more pain; a promise of reunion and redemption; a promise of life eternal, joy eternal, and peace eternal.
Reflection
Don’t just let these words pass through you. Take them up. Stop for a moment and see with faith what you can’t yet see with your eyes. Look at your child made well. Look at a world made right andook at Your Father’s face as He wipes the last and final tear from your eyes. This day is coming. It is before you. Look to it.
Truly friend, your hope and your joy must spring from the well of heaven not from the well of the here and now. The present can be a desert. There may not be one drop of hope to soothe or comfort, but the well of heaven never runs dry. It will seep through the barrenness of your present suffering and create life where no earthly life ought to exist.
Fill your heart and your mind with heaven. Read of it. Study it. Learn all that God has revealed about it in His Word. Hold fast to the promise and assure your heart of what lies before you. You are marching towards it, and it cannot be lost. Lift up your eyes to the promise. Let it strengthen and carry you day by day. It is the present hope to be found amidst your present heartache; and it is a present hope that can never be removed.
His Promise
2 Peter 3:13 “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
For those interested in beginning a study of heaven you may find Chip Ingram’s series “The Real Heaven: What the Bible Actually Says” a helpful place to start. https://livingontheedge.org/product/the-real-heaven-study-guide/
If you are seeking support through prayer, please visit our Prayers for You page. We invite you to allow us to pray for you… for your heartache, for your family, for your future or whatever is pressing down on your soul today.