Dave Gibbons posted the following quote online recently….
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. -Anne Lamott
I would add that the hope which “begins” in the dark has to have another starting place. There has to have been a time, a moment, a point in which the person in the dark can go back to a memory – or a collection of memories – on which hope can stand.
It’s that ethereal experience where the unseen and seen meet.
It’s the paradoxical moment when God’s voice is loudly heard by only your ears.
It’s the same kind of moment that Elijah had while tucked away in the cleft of the rock and the chaos of the external world gave way to the overpowering strength of the voice of God.
I have found my middle of the night concerns that can easily fill my heart and mind with paralyzing fears seem to melt with the display of God’s power we call “sunrise”.
What troubles you today? What has you close to giving up or giving in?
Push on God. Search out that starting place. Bug Him to meet you in a way that binds your heart to the power of His name. Become persistent like the friend in Luke 11 who finally gets his way.
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
How challenging is it to find the space in this culture in which we can connect personally with the Creator of the Universe? We are constantly inundated with the message “you have control of your destiny — just do it”. It takes consideration of how big God really is and who He is to live into the joyful space He intends for us. Without that connection, a hollow victory awaits the hard work we put into this life. Title and financial status have nothing to do with an eternal perspective that comes from relationship with Jesus.