tapping into hope

“The Lord is my portion’, says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him.’” Lamentations 3:24 (NKJV)

A town of about 600 people in Morocco was recently reported as not having water for three months during the summer.  A three month dry spell with no running water is a long time.

It’d be really easy and tempting to just shut the tap off and be done with it, but if you choose to live expectantly then the only logical thing to do is leave the tap open because today might be the day that the water once again flows.   And when it does you want to be ready to capture every sweet drop because there’s no guarantee as to how long it will flow for these people.  It could be on from here on out, but it could be just a momentary surge lasting only a few hours.

Regardless of how long the water flows how terrible would it be if you were to find out later in the day from your neighbor that the water had indeed come on, but just for the morning, so you missed out on this opportunity because your tap was purposefully turned off?

No, this is so important that you need to experience it first hand for yourself.  You don’t need to be found waiting to be told the good news too late to do you any good by your neighbor.

Your neighbor, by the way, didn’t tell you sooner because she was busy in her own house filling as many containers with water as she could at the time leaving you with that woulda, coulda, shoulda sinking feeling.  “Gee, it was so dry before, but now somehow it really feels even more dry,” you say to yourself as your neighbor heads back to her own house for a cool drink.

When times get hard or tough it’s easy to fall into the spiritual trap of pulling back, of giving up.

While it’s true you managed to keep your spirits up for a few weeks by remaining faithful with your devotional and prayer time, but as the “dryness” of your seemingly unanswered prayers continued on day after day you gradually spent less and less time alone with the Lord, until one day you threw your arms up in the air in “what does it matter?” futility, turned the “tap” off, and walked away.

Maybe you didn’t walk permanently away for good, but the wonderful times of closeness you used to feel when you were with Him just didn’t have that same intimacy that they once did.  So now your time spent with Him is much more like a quick 5 minute hit.  You hurriedly walk up to the faucet, give it a quick flick of your wrist, nothing comes out, so you turn it “off” just as quickly as you turned it “on” all the while muttering to yourself,  “Why did I even bother? I knew nothing was going to come out.”

And so you continue on with your day with an ever growing sense of hopelessness.  The very thought of leaving the faucet open all of the time as some of your friends have suggested is simply more than you can bear.  “Why that sort of expectation encouraging me to wait on Him is only setting me up for even more heartbreak,” you say to yourself as you kick the rock on your sidewalk off into the street.  “Besides, they don’t have a clue at all about  what I’m dealing with over here.”

Before you know it you’re spending less and less time with those friends who used to be so close to you.  In his book, “The Making of a Man of God, Alan Redpath says, “The burden presses you down to the point where you have begun to doubt God, and even to doubt your friends.  The one always follows the other; when a man begins to loosen his hold upon the promises of God he begins to lose his contact with spiritual friendships.  A chill in our relationship with heaven is always followed by a chill in our relationships down here.  Oh, how readily the sheer pressure of some situation that is absolutely overwhelming throws us completely off balance, until we learn the lesson that God has for us right in the middle of it.”

In our season of dryness, of difficult circumstances, and as believers we all experience them, what lesson is the Lord trying to teach us? Or is the pain of your circumstances so great you prefer Him not to even be present?  If so, essentially you’ve turned the tap completely off.  Unless you invite and embrace the Lord’s active presence into your life regardless of your circumstances you are left to fight a battle you cannot win in your own strength.

Surely there must be a reason, His reason, for this drought in your life, right?  Life quickly becomes meaningless especially in bad or difficult times when viewed from only our own limited perspective.  Such a perspective can find no reason for suffering whatsoever leading one into despair and hopelessness.

One must believe God has a reason for this dry time of trial in your life, otherwise what is one to do?  Where can hope be found apart from Him?  Hope leaves the tap open no matter the circumstances.  It has to, it has no other choice.

Circumstances in our lives that put our hearts right up against the choice to leave the tap open or leave it closed are defining moments in our faith journey.  It’s as if God is saying to us, “You say you trust Me, but do you really?  In the face of trials do you really believe I am good and always have your best interest at heart?”

The faith rubber hits the road like a jet airliner’s tires give up that tell-tale puff of smoke once they touch the tarmac during landing in trying times.  He’s asking if we will embrace His rightful place as our Heavenly Father and give Him the reins to our lives so that He can accomplish His good and perfect will in our lives for His purposes as found in Isaiah 61:3 (ESV), “to grant to those who mourn in Zion-to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” 

Surely you didn’t think becoming an oak of righteousness would be an easy journey did you?  A heart after His own heart does not, and cannot, magically happen overnight with the wave of some magic wand.  It is a road that calls for perseverance.  It is a road that calls for us to leave the tap open.  Romans 5:3-4 (NKJV), “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance,; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Why do we face various trials?  What is the purpose?  Is there a purpose? His desire is that we become like His Son, our Savior, as found in Romans 8:29 (NKJV) which says, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”  Knowing this should our expectations for this sort of life journey to such a glorious destination be much different than Jesus’ own path that He walked while here on this earth?  Praise God that Jesus embraced His purpose and left the tap open all the way to the cross!  He placed Himself second to the Father.  And so must we.

Redpath goes on to say that each of us as His children have a “stone of destiny in every circumstance of life.”  He bases this on the story found in 1 Samuel 20 concerning how Jonathan would let David know of Saul’s intentions toward him, whether of peace, or death.

As the story goes once Jonathan determined Saul’s intentions toward David he would shoot arrows into the field in which David was hiding.  If the arrows came close to David then it was safe for him to come home, but if the arrows were to fly over his head then he must leave in order to live.

As they had planned David hid next to his own stone of destiny known as Ezel (I Samuel 20:19; “the stone that sheweth the way” AV) and upon seeing Jonathan’s arrows fly over his head David knew he could not return home but must leave immediately.  Redpath describes the situation like this, “The decision, however, was out of David’s hands completely.  All he had to do was to stand by the stone Ezel and wait for an arrow from heaven unerringly to hit the target-an arrow that would tell him either to go out into the wilderness or back into the palace of Saul.” (emphasis mine)

Are you able or willing to keep the tap open by recognizing at some point in your circumstances that the decision is out of your hands and solely in the Lord’s?  Or as summarized by Redpath, “If I truly belong to Him, if He has filled me with His Spirit and marked me as His, then whatever the pressure upon my life at this point, the issue is out of my hands altogether.”

Please allow me to once again to quote Redpath as this particular writing comes to a close.  I think what he says is beautiful and rather than attempting to paraphrase his words, I simply choose to let his heart speak directly to our hearts. “Jesus Christ is our stone of destiny, rooted in a green hill outside Jerusalem.  The burden of the pressure of circumstances, whatever it is, may be rolled away as you bring it and leave it at His feet.  What else can you do?  You are in a predicament, unable to turn this way or that.  It is a glorious position to be in: the government is upon His shoulder and your hands are right off the situation; only He can guide.  All you can do is what David did, as he took his stand at his stone of destiny and waited.

It is a great thing to be in a position like that, when all you can do is to take your stand at Calvary, and wait.  There are so many paths, and naturally some would seem far more attractive than others.  Left to choose our way, what fools we make of ourselves!  There may be many alternatives that seem, humanly speaking, more reasonable and attractive than God’s way.  But there is only one way that leads to the throne, and that is God’s plan for your life and mine.”

We’re all familiar with that television commercial from a few years ago that used to end with “We’ll leave the light on for you.”  My brothers and sisters in Christ, as we struggle to find our way through various trials let’s determine right here and right now that we will choose to leave the tap wide open and not closed because He is indeed worthy and good, and yes, He always has our best interest at heart.

Yes, it’s a risk to our hearts, but consider, if you will, the risk He first took that day on Calvary for each of our own eternal sakes.  He held nothing back…He’s asking us to do the same.  You know it as well as I do, my friend…He would’ve died for you and you alone even if no one else would’ve chosen Him generation after generation after generation.  You are His.  He is yours.  Tap into His heart for it is good beyond measure.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV)