|| a call to hope ||
For the past few years each time I would
step foot on a plane or embark on a new journey I would always ask the Lord, “what do you have in store for me through
this trip?”
a few years ago I was heading to Taiwan to
surprise some of my friends, when I thought to ask this question for the first
time. the response somewhat took me by surprise, I felt the Lord say || “I want
to give you hope for the future” ||
every journey since then I have asked the
Lord this same question and in His faithfulness He would always and immediately
respond with the same answer, He wanted to give me “hope”!
recently as I have travelled I have almost
avoided asking because I felt that I already knew the response I was going to get,
it was clear, He really wanted to instil “hope”
in me.
I would think...”hope”??! Hope for what??
It’s always the same thing...isn’t there anything else you could say? something
a little more specific maybe??
I found myself Last night boarding a plane
from my home in Kona, Hawaii to Honolulu taking me to the first of many
international flights that will fly me around the world this summer. As I was
waiting to board I was able to reflect on the generosity and lavishness of
Jesus throughout my life. If anyone were to ever ask me what I would want to do
with my life || my dream job || I
would tell them it would have to include || Jesus, people and; travel...and the obvious good coffee, all the while
knowing that I will travel to every nation in the world to minister to people
and see them brought in to the fullness of who Jesus created them to be || in
my younger years I never thought it were possible to attain a life living out
my dreams,. In fact I believe most of us live in that lie, including Chuck, the
gentleman I sat next to on the plane last night. even before Chuck knew
anything about my life he told he wished he could have a job where he was able
to travel all over the world...he was so defeated as he told me...believing
that it could never happen, his dream was too impossible.
why is it that we think our dreams are so unattainable? that they are
something so far away from us that they just taunt us by slipping through our
fingers? We then lose all hope of ever seeing our dreams become a reality?? Why
do we allow such hopelessness to rule our lives??
I am sitting on a plane as I write this and
once again I ask the Lord almost facetiously...”I know you have hope for me here Lord but what else do
you have for me in my short time in Taiwan??” But as surely as the sun rises God’s
faithfulness is true, and He responds, “hope,
I have hope for you there”! and nothing else!
“okay, I guess hope...it is”!
It was then that I picked up the book I am
reading. I am in the middle of a chapter about cultivating a dreaming heart. It
wasn’t until right then in that moment that everything from the past few years
began to make sense to me. Proverbs tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a promise fulfilled is a
tree of life”!
this was a huge revelation for me. It
didn’t matter how many times in my life I have read that proverb it hit me
today that that is what the Lord has been
trying to tell me over these past few years.
the book is talking about how when our hope is deferred our heart is sick. A
sick heart is hopeless, there are no options, we are angry, disappointed, stop
dreaming etc. We enter in to survival mode, we expect too little from
life...blah blah blah!! I realised that the Lord wants to save me (us) from
this.
He never wants me to stop dreaming! He
never wants to stop fulfilling the hope
that I have!! He delights in it!!! God’s commitment to me (us) is that He will
heal my (our) heart and restore me (us) from failures and disappointments! Hope is our destination, it is where
God created us to live!! Hope is
confident expectation that something will happen. Hope is the sustaining force that
helps me (us) in every storm. It is in the moment that we begin to lose hope
that our focus and perspective is taken off of Jesus, and is lost.
yesterday as I was preparing for this trip
that will take me to 8 nations in 7 short weeks (a formerly unattainable dream of mine), some of my closest friends
in the world gathered around me to pray and send me off. I received a word about
Deborah, a judge in the bible that met with the Israelites under a palm tree who
judged and gave them divine wisdom. She was a woman who was hopeful, she believed in and released destiny
over people’s lives.
This is exactly what I have been created to
do and will get to do over these next few weeks as I visit my teams. I sit here
amazed that the message that the Lord has been speaking to me for years finally
hit home. Each journey (and so much more of my life) has been a tree of life
planted. Each relationship that the Lord has deemed important enough in my life
to maintain has been a promise fulfilled. He wants to give me hope that not
only do my dreams matter but that the fulfilment of my dreams really change the
world and eternity.
Let this be a call to have hope and to dream! To be a generation
of hope filled dreamers! Let our
culture be one who isn’t afraid to Share our dreams with others, a culture who fights
to see trees of life planted, dreams fulfilled. Let’s encourage one another, Write
down our dreams and stand together in belief that they will and can actually happen.
Let’s meditate and pray over the things the Lord is speaking to us and see the
world around us come alive.
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Lori, I comment unknown if you'll read this....but I read your most recent news letter and I clicked on the link at the bottom bringing me to this blog....I felt to head back to 2014, the year we met in Kona during the April Awaken DTS and am moved by the timely word of this short reflection of Hope...written all those years ago and yet thankful to read today in 2021. May you always keep writing and sharing Truth as Hope fuels your words and Ministry. Blessings, Rachel
ReplyDeleteAmen Rachel! Great to hear from you. And thanks for reminding me of this 🤍
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