One morning I was feeling pretty discouraged about all the sadness in the world and wondering if anything I am doing really matters. There is so much uncertainty, hate, sadness, cruelty, and disaster. I prayed, “Oh God, does anything I do even matter?”
I was not at all expecting to go where God took me in His Word…
He led me to Psalms. So while I was making my morning vegetable juice, I began listening to Psalms 130 on my Bible app:
“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.”
Psalms 130:3-4
The Amplified version explains it this way:
“If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.”
Psalm 130:3-4
So then I said to God, “What does Your forgiveness have to do with hope?
The very next verses read…
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning— Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.”
Psalms 130:5-6
Wow! This means….acknowledging God’s great FORGIVENESS IS A PRELUDE TO HOPE.
When we know someone loves us enough to forgive and forget our crimes against their love; that knowledge gives us great hope.
Love gives us the greatest hope!
Through forgiveness, we come to understand why the Bible says that GOD is LOVE. He is the embodiment of what we most desperately need—love. When we experience His forgiveness over and over again and maintain a thankful heart for His grace and mercy towards us—we draw nearer to the greatest source of hope we can ever know.
God’s forgiveness humbles us; and thus, we are no longer in opposition to His love.
“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:6
As God sent me out the door with a smile, He tied it all together like a beautiful gift with this verse:
“For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
Isaiah 57:15
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