Hope!

 

“Hope can see heaven through the thickest clouds.”  Thomas Brooks

   According to a recent poll, roughly two-thirds of Americans say they felt nervous, depressed, lonely, or hopeless on at least one of their past seven days, the poll found. For each of the four emotions, close to 2 in 10 Americans said they felt that way on three or more days. 14% said they felt reactions such as sweating, becoming nauseous, or hyperventilating when thinking about their experience with the pandemic. One in four adults ages 18 to 24 have considered suicide. “There’s been this narrative that young people are spared a lot of the impact of Covid because they’re less likely to develop real severe physical complications,” says Ellen Burstein, one of the poll researchers and a junior at Harvard. “But it’s taken a profound toll on their mental health.”
  We are living in what some experts have labeled “a pandemic of hopelessness.” For many, the turmoil has less to do with Covid-19 than the pressures on our mental health triggered by lockdowns and uncertainty. They feel like they’re living in a nightmare. A pandemic is raging, erasing more lives than many wars combined. People experiencing hopelessness may make or think statements such as:
 
  My situation will never get better. I have no future. No one can help me. I feel like giving up. It is too late now. I have no hope. I will never be happy again.
 
   On Saturday, December 17, 1927, the crew of the Navy submarine S-4 was trolling beneath the waters of Cape Cod Bay. They were engaged in routine testing of their vessel. The Coast Guard Cutter Paulding was traveling across the surface doing the same. The vessels never saw each other. The submarine broke the surface just in time to receive a death blow from the Paulding. The submarine, with its crew of forty, sank in less than five minutes and came to rest more than one hundred feet below on the ocean floor.
  Rescue attempts, though meager and primitive in 1927, began at once. But due to impossible weather, it took twenty-four hours for the first diver to descend to the wreckage. As soon as the diver’s feet hit the hull, he immediately heard tapping. There were survivors, alive, trapped inside.
  Pounding out Morse code on the hull with a hammer, the diver discovered that six crewmen had survived the collision. With their air supply dwindling, the six survivors tapped out in Morse code a final haunting question, “Is there any hope?” 
  That’s what many in our world are asking today: “Is there any hope?” 
  This morning we’re beginning a several-week series: HOPE. Many around us have lost hope. It may be that they’re in what they consider to be a hopeless relationship. Others have lost hope after learning of a terminal medical condition. Some look at our country and our world and feel a sense of hopelessness. Others struggle with an addiction or habit for years and can’t seem to conquer it. They wonder, “Is there any hope?” 
  Our God is the God of hope. The Bible is a Book of hope. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be working through how we can have hope, God’s hope.
  To help you head in the right direction as we begin this series, here are some practical strategies for growing in God’s hope:
  Begin each morning by spending 20-30 minutes in God’s presence, reading and meditating on His Word, praying, and even singing. Believers like us who struggled with hopelessness made it the priority of every single day to delight in time with their Heavenly Father. If you lack hope, ask God to fill you with His hope and eternal perspective.
  Memorize some of God’s wonderful promises that kindle hope in your soul so that you can meditate on them throughout the day. Romans 15:13, 8:28, 8:32, and many other verses like them will help you to set your mind on the things above rather than on the problems that are bogging you down. The Psalms are loaded with verses of trust in God in the midst of life-threatening situations.
  Keep a gratitude journal and write down several blessings every day that God has given you. Begin by thanking Him each morning for sending His beloved Son to save you from your sins. Thank Him that you have His Word to guide and sustain you. Thank Him for all your blessings and even for your trials (1 Thess. 5:18), which help you to grow. Immediately confess all grumbling as sin and instead deliberately think each day of things that you can thank God for.
  When you feel overwhelmed with despair, talk to yourself: Tell yourself, again and again, to hope in God. The depressed psalmist did this repeatedly (Ps. 42:5): “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.”
  Read the biographies of godly saints who have run the race before you. Read how William Carey, Adoniram Judson, George Muller, Amy Carmichael, Corrie ten Boom, Joni Eareckson-Tada and many more men and women of faith trusted God in the midst of overwhelming trials.
  As Adoniram Judson suffered horrible torture and deprivation in a squalid Burmese prison. A friend sent him a letter and asked, “Judson, how’s the outlook?” Judson replied, “The outlook is as bright as the promises of God.” Adoniram Judson abounded in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. So can we! That same hope from God is available to us!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.