Hope Again

November 6, 2012

Have you been working your fingers to the bone…only to wind up with bony fingers?  Have you been walking so long your feet can barely take another step?  I’ve heard some describe a long stretch of unanswered prayers (at least in our own estimation), years of hardships, and/or months of turmoil as a “wilderness experience.”  It’s that time of life when you’re dry and thirsty but there’s just no water to be found.

However, those who are not presently in a wilderness experience and have come out of it know full well that it’s just a season, a time period, an era…that will end.  

There was a group of people in the Bible who wandered around in this type of wilderness for 40 years, bellyaching and complaining most of the time…yet in all reality they never lacked anything.

I think when we’re in the middle of the dry desert we’re also somehow in the darkness of a tunnel and we’re unable to see the light at the end, to inspire us to hope.  

The Bible says of that same group of people that they were blessed in the work that their hands did, they were watched over right in the middle of the wilderness, God was with them, and they never went without having their needs met.

Tired hands? Feeling alone? Hungry for something that satisfies?  Be encouraged.  Find someone who’s already been through that tunnel, who’s walked on out of the wilderness, and knows the faithfulness of the Guide who got them to the place of satisfaction.  Then choose to believe what they tell you, and hope again.

Father:  Thank you for your provision even when it’s not what I want at the time.  Guide me through, so I don’t get lost…during this season that’s soon to change.