Tag: Hope

Digging in Deeper: 1 Samuel 28:5-7

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“When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, ‘Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.’ And his servants said to him, ‘Behold, there is a medium at En-dor.’”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

When was the last time you felt alone, scared, and desperate? Saul was a mess here. His world was falling apart and even though he was the king of Israel, he had a pressing sense that he couldn’t do anything about it. That’s a scary place to be. It’s the kind of place that leads us to make some choices that would normally not even enter on our radar. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 27:1

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“Then David said in his heart, ‘Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.’”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had a moment or even a whole season when your faith failed? I don’t mean you failed to keep faith, I mean it just like I said: Your faith failed. You had faith and things were rocking along fairly smoothly even in spite of the challenging season you were in, and then it was just gone. It was like you were driving a car down the highway, cruising down the road, and then all of a sudden it made a sharp turn off the road and headed out into the wilderness. This is what happened to David. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 30:18

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“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel were in a pretty hard spot.  They had turned on the Lord.  In fact, they had been turned away from the Lord for a long time.  They had been turned away from the Lord for a long time and it was beginning to show.  Their world was teetering on the edge.  Some of them had started to realize just how dire their situation really was.  They could read the international tea leaves.  They saw the Assyrian army moving steadily in their direction, gobbling up nations in their path and spitting out nothing but ruin and destruction.  But, instead of heeding Isaiah’s call to return to the Lord for their hope and salvation, they were running everywhere but to Him. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Lamentations 3:21-24

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“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Lamentations is a series of complaints to God.  Jeremiah wrote these toward the end of his ministry when Babylon had conquered and destroyed Jerusalem.  It is mostly a bitter book.  It’s tone is both corporate and personal.  Chapter three here in particular is very personal.  The prophet describes feeling totally abandoned and even actively attacked by the Lord.  They are words that ring with familiarity to those who have experienced loss and grief and seasons of great distress today. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Hebrews 11:1

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“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

As the writer of Hebrews defines it here, faith is, by definition, a conviction about the positive existence of something we have not seen.  For instance and as the writer observes in v. 3, it is by faith that we conclude the world and everything in it was created by God.  We weren’t there and so we could not possibly have seen it.  And yet we believe it all the same.  The question here we must address in light of modern misunderstandings about the nature of faith, though, is this: Is it reasonable? Read the rest…