From where does your hope come?
By Sophie Heinsohn
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash.
The Lord has a way of reminding me of His faithfulness just when I am striving my hardest, thinking it is all me. There is no reason to strive if our hope comes from the Lord. But so often we try to find our hope on earth: in ourselves and our elected officials, the material things we have gathered, whatever is in front of us.
We place so much confidence in these things that we forget where our hope comes from, the true kind of hope that is a promise of goodness to come. The truth is, our hope, and the answer to everything, is in God Himself.
Our souls wait in silence upon God because He is our salvation. He alone is worthy of our souls’ waiting upon because He alone can provide for everything. Mortals and materials will disappoint us. They cannot be all that we need. We were made by our Creator for our Creator. He alone can satisfy our souls and bring us true hope.
The funny thing is, even as I was pondering what to write, I was striving. I was trying to find my hope in some great idea I would have instead of relying on the one who gives me words and stories to share.
In His faithfulness, He led me to Psalm 62 as He leads us to so many things along life’s way. In verse 6 the psalmist writes, “I shall not be shaken.” I used to read words like these and wonder if they were true, and if so, how? When everything around us seems wrong, can we really not be shaken?
As with all promises of God, this is a yes and amen! The one true God is not understandable by our finite minds. Praise the Lord! Because He is sovereign, we can trust in His promises. He alone is the safe place to hide when the going gets tough. He is our rock and fortress.
When His word says we will not be shaken, we can trust in Him and in the truth of His promises. As this psalm says, He is our salvation. When we choose faith instead of fear, what a difference it makes, to trust in the one who has cared enough to provide for our salvation and who accomplished the defeat of death. The sovereign and holy God is the one in whom we rest and why we are not shaken when we choose faith over fear.
How do we choose faith over fear? Faith overcomes fear when we keep our eyes eternally focused. God is sovereign, and He is working all things for eternity, for His glory and our good. When we remember eternity, the matters of this earth begin to shrink.
The good news is, we do not have to do this on our own. We do not bear our burdens by ourselves. Because we have the presence of God, His spirit indwelling us, we can pour out our hearts before Him as the psalm says.
The creator of the universe wants us to pour out our hearts. He is strong enough to bear it all, even when we are not. When we trust Him for this, we find in Him our refuge, our hope and our peace.
This is the spot where we no longer strive. It is not about us. Our fears diminish because our faith is rightly placed in the One who can, and is, sovereignly working all things.
No one on earth can bear our burdens, satisfy our needs or fix our problems. No one and nothing on earth was meant to have our faith placed wholly in it or them. God alone can take our fears and turn them into faith. He alone can be our hope, our refuge and our fortress. The Lord alone is worthy of our souls waiting in silence because He, and He only, is our salvation.
Just now, He has shown His faithfulness and sovereignty to me. He reminded me that He is sovereignly orchestrating all things. On my walk tonight, God had me cross paths with a woman who would pray for me, reminding me that He is always remembering me and steadfastly loving me, providing exactly what I need when I need it.
Then there was the sunset tonight. It was a gentle, subdued sunset as a storm moved in. It reminded me that at the end of the day, God is still faithful and steadfast, even in the midst of a coming storm. The subdued nature reminded me that although the Creator can work a fireworks display, He is faithful in the small moments and big ones alike.
Because he is faithful, he is also trustworthy. He is worthy of our faith and casting off of our fears, and He alone is worthy of our souls waiting in trust, because only He can be our salvation. There is no one else who can provide this.
Is your hope placed in the Lord and Him alone? If not, I encourage you to see Him.
Even in the circumstances of today and the things we do not understand, we can hold on to Him. As C. S. Lewis would say, He is not safe, but He is good. And you know what else? Aslan is on the move!
Hailing from Charleston originally, Sophie has lived up and down the Eastern Seaboard, which fostered an interest in history and its present-day cultural implications. With a bachelor’s degree in government from Liberty University, Sophie is now pursuing a master’s in writing and looks forward to merging these passions in the future.
