When things get difficult, it's easy to want to give up. It's easy to get down and discouraged. But, that's not Gods plan for us. Yes you've been hurt! Your heart has been broken. Pain so real from the desertion of a friend or family member it felt like your insides were being ripped out. Sadness so deep from the death of a loved one you were sure you would drown and never see the sunlight of happiness again. Perhaps you've been through a titanic financial nightmare or your marriage has utterly failed and your family is split down the middle. Others receive the crushing news that they have cancer and their emotions cry out, "Why oh why is this happening to me." I have been there numerous times. I have been hurt. My heart has been broken. I have felt pain so strong that death seemed preferable to life itself. Today I can tell you that what ever your heartache, whatever your pain, whatever your discouragement, it can be healed. No matter how bad the pain, don't give up; no matter how dark the depression, don't give in; no matter how high the shadows of despair, don't surrender. If you put your life in CHRIST'S HANDS, you can never be placed in a situation for which God has not made provision. It is Gods desire to heal your wounds, mend your broken heart, stabilize your life, remove your pain and make you whole and complete again! God wants us to be so full of hope, so full of expectancy that we just can't help believing in his total Sovereignty over our lives. He wants us to be PRISONERS of HOPE! When you're a prisoner of something, it's like you're chained to it. In other words, you can't get away from it. I know people that are prisoners of fear, prisoners of worry, prisoners of doubt. You've heard them say, "Nothing good ever happens to me." Or they say, "It's never going to change. It's just been too long." No, you're chained to the wrong thing. Yes, we must be truthful about the facts. The truth is that you may have failed, but that doesn't mean you are a failure as a person for the rest of your life. What determines whether our lives end in success or failure is our current choices in Jesus, not our past wrong choices. We need to break those chains and become a Prisoner of Hope. That means that no matter how long it's taking, no matter how impossible it looks, our attitude should be, "I know it's going to work out, I know I'm going to overcome IN JESUS. It may be taking a long time, but I know this to shall pass. It may be difficult, but I am a Prisoner of Hope!" By taking the focus off our injuries, our losses, our emptiness and our heartache and putting our lives entirely IN CHRISTS HANDS, day in and day out ,we are choosing to be a Prisoner of Hope. We are choosing to wrap ourselves in hope and attach ourselves to our Lord and Savior. Then with Paul we can say, "I do not count myself to have attained, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3: 13 & 14. |