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| herlifeinspired.com |
“And now these three
remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
(NIV)
“In the New Testament, Hope means ‘the expectation of
good.’ The original word denotes a joyful and contented expectation of eternal
salvation.” 1.
I love the chapter this verse ends. These words are like
a coda at the end of a musical piece. Paul reminds his readers of what is
important in life. He lists three lasting qualities of life.
We need to have hope in order to go forth in life. Events
and circumstances in life sometime cause people to lose their hope. When a
person becomes hopeless, that state of mind leads to grief for those around
us.
Right now, I am trusting God for several different
outcomes. I have to have hope in the LORD for these things or I would become
very depressed. I have traveled the road to sadness and depression. I recently
realized I had been in a rut. Slowly, I am making progress out of the mire in
which I happened to find myself.
As I study our church’s prayer list, I see the need for
people to have faith and hope. As one of the practices I do when I read the
local newspaper, I read the obituaries. I focus on the families and the
deceased person’s involvement in a church. In those instances where the person
knew God, I believe those families have hope to see their loved one again in
heaven.
_________
1. The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Moody
Press, Chicago, revised 1988, page 585
Hi Cecelia! I'm so sorry that you have been dealing with sadness. I have been there too my friend, and it is not fun. I hope that your efforts to work out of that place are fruitful. I think the Lord challenges us in so many ways so we'll grow to depend on him more. Sometimes I wish he'd find a different way!
ReplyDeleteI will keep praying for you my friend, and with God's grace you will be pulling out of that rut very soon.
Blessings always,
Ceil
Ceil: Thank you for your prayers. God is good. I need to depend on God for more and more of the things I do and the outcome of the things that affect me. Hubby's health is part of the mix of what I face every day.
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