I don’t know about you, but there are some days when my hope in certain areas gets very thin.  We all have bouts of doubt and to deny that is to deny our fallen nature.  I’m not glorifying those times but to say that we have no doubt is to say that we have no sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.             1 John 1.8 NIV

Looking around the world today as well as within myself, I don’t wonder what the end will be but I do wonder how it will be accomplished in my life.  From school shootings to people eating Tide pods, something just isn’t right.  Why would someone shoot a group of innocents?  Why would someone willingly eat laundry detergent?  There are so many topics that, to me, are clear examples of a loss of hope.  The drug epidemic, abortion, suicide, lack of caring….the list goes on and on.

I used to have a saying…As long as there is breath, there is hope.  However, something changed in my view of that.  This morning as I was saying that, I was challenged by the Word.  According to the definition, hope is a feeling of expectancy.  It is a goal that is set believing that it will happen.  It is a plan for the future.

I’ve been to several funerals recently.  Most of them were people who had an illness that they had fought for a long time and it eventually took it’s toll.  In the beginning, there was hope that it would not take over their body.  However, as the illness wore on, you could see the hope being diminished.  Plans that were once made were diverted.

Jeremiah 29.11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.“

This scripture brings comfort to many people.  It is often quoted when things aren’t going the way we planned.  When things aren’t right, many believers rely on this word to help them through.  I fully believe in God’s Word!  When God speaks, it is truth and it is life.  When HE says that HE is thinking of me and those thoughts are peaceful, my mind is at ease and my soul rests in Him.  However, when HE says that the purpose of HIS thoughts are to give me an expected end (other translations call it a hope and a future), I have reason to rejoice.  Friends, hear this….whether you have hope or not, God has hope enough for you.  God has enough plans, aim, and goals to more than make up for your times of doubt.  God thinks enough about you and me to take care of our pain, suffering, wondering, and failings.

But wait…there’s more!  This is what Father was speaking to me.  Remember what I said earlier?  As long as there is breath, there is hope.  I found that statement limits or shows our limit of understanding in what God can do.  Remember the story of the friend of Jesus, Lazarus?  Read the story in John 11.  This corrected my thinking about hope.

As the story goes, Jesus received word that His friend Lazarus was sick.  Yet in His infinite wisdom and knowledge, Jesus didn’t rush to get there to see His friend.  In fact, when He arrived, Lazarus had already been dead and in the tomb for 4 days.  Martha, the brother of Lazarus told Jesus that if He had showed up on time then her brother wouldn’t have died.  Jesus told her that he would live again and she assumed Jesus was referring to the resurrection.  Jesus then reassured her hope in Him by saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  As the story progresses, when Jesus arrived in Bethany, there were people mourning and grieving over the loss of Lazarus.

When you look at the story, Jesus orders the stone to be removed.  The response of the people was one of astonishment and concern because since Lazarus had been dead so long, his body was decaying.  Their hope was gone.  It was too late for Lazarus.  His end was death.  That’s when Jesus proved who He is by calling his friend by name and commanding him to come forth.

Here’s what I want you to understand through this…just because there isn’t breath doesn’t mean that hope is gone.  Lazarus had no breath.  His friends and family had given up hope.  However, when Jesus, the resurrection and the life speaks, He can bring hope into a breathless situation.

Maybe you’re in a hopeless situation.  Maybe you feel like the breath has been knocked out of you.  Maybe you have given up hope on something that seems dead and buried.  God has enough hope for you!  Father has your end already mapped out!  What seems dead and buried can have life again!  The Creator has enough breath left to breathe it back into you!  Just rest in Him.  Give Him your heart and let Him bring peace.

Let us agree with you in prayer.  Email us at thehealingbalm@gmail.com so we can speak those wonderful words of life over you.