I once had a loved one diagnosed with diabetes – and his response was amazing. He watched what he ate. He walked daily. He became healthier than he’d been in a long time. Then he stopped. After a little prying, it came to light that he had thought those changes might eventually mean he wouldn’t need medication. When his physician clarified that he would always have to take something, he lost his motivation: “If I have to take the medicine no matter what, why bother?”
Human beings can endure a lot – if we feel like it means something and is leading somewhere. We find incredible strength in hope. It even changes how we experience hardship. As the Apostle Paul wrote, we can “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Rom. 5:3-5). Hope gave my loved one strength to make very difficult life changes – but then that hope failed.
That’s not unusual. We often pin our hopes on things that fail: health, money, careers, or even relationships. Then when they do, we are worse off than before. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Pro. 13:12). But God is the God of hope. Created in His image and after His likeness, we need hope, and He freely supplies it: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13). He invites us to take refuge in Him, providing us with “strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us…a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:18-19).
Foreseeing times of terrible hardship in Israel’s future, Isaiah prophesied, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you’” (Isa. 35:3-4). When those hard times arrived, God reassured them through the prophet Jeremiah that He would fulfill His promises: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:10-13).
When we place our hope in God, we tap into a source of strength that will never fail. Yet, we have to work with Him. We must fortify ourselves and call on Him. Pray to Him. Whole-heartedly seek Him. Other things in life will inevitably let us down, but the God of hope never will. He will fill you up, becoming for you a source of strength unlike any other.
God wants to strengthen us. Let’s get to work with “Stronger”.