My mom says that hindsight is 20/20. It’s much easier to look behind at former years & see something, that at the time was clear as mud, with great clarity.
When I recall times of deep disappointment, times when it felt like God missed the mark, I realize this one thing with stinging revelation:
The only time God “missed” the mark was when I set it!
Today I read of Paul’s journey to Rome where he’d appeal to Caesar about his innocence. The Jews accused him of many untrue things & hated him so much that they even tried to assassinate him! Acts 27 finds him on a ship in the wiles of fall weather when a wind of typhoon strength suddenly descends.
The storm ensues for days while the sailors do what they can to keep the ship in one piece. The passage for today, however, ends abruptly at verse 20, leaving us hanging with this:
“The terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun & stars, until all hope was gone.”
Makes you want to jump ahead into tomorrow’s reading, right?
Or maybe, like me, something about the verse hit far deeper than a storyline?
There will be stormy seasons in life when it feels like winds of typhoon strength begin battering against your life-you lose a job, loved one, relationship, home…& suddenly you find yourself in the eye of the storm that seems to have blotted out THE SON.
All hope SEEMS lost, but it’s not & here’s why. When we set our sights on a mark God didn’t set, the FEELING of hopelessness settles quickly.
But when we fix our gaze on the Truth that we have a Living Hope Who conquered death, nothing might not change with the swirling storm AROUND us, but everything changes INSIDE because we know The One Who envelops us within His Presence, even closer than the storm!
We are never without Hope because it’s held in the personhood of Jesus, Emmanuel, God WITH us!
Oh Father, when hard things begin to blot out Hope, remind us that Hope begins & ends with Your Son. Any Hope apart from Him is a mark we set that eventually leads to hopeLESSness.
May we, like Paul, remain well content when we face persecutions & difficulties for it is in those low moments that we’re reminded to look high TO Whom (& FROM Whom) our help comes!
1 CHRONICLES 7:1-8:40
ACTS 27:1-20
PSALM 7:1-17
PROVERBS 18:22
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