Hope That Won’t Disappoint

Hope That Won’t Disappoint

by | Mar 3, 2025 | Places for Hope and Healing Resources, What Does a Relationship With God Look Like?, Why Am I Here?

Are you in a place where hope seems only for someone else?

I have experienced a hope in Jesus Christ that has never disappointed me despite all that I’ve faced.

GOD’S HOPE STORY WITH HUMANITY

A story that began very long ago

In ancient times, most of the known world rejected God. It hadn’t always been that way, but that’s a story for another day. God had created humanity for communion with him, and so invited a people to come out of their chosen idolatries and enter into a relationship with him. He promised to care for, defend, ardently love, and prosper them if they would devote themselves to him as he devoted himself to them. As he had vowed to care for and love them, they vowed to give him their total devotion as well. Yet, over the centuries, although God kept his end of the vow, they did not.

In the Bible, God likened this vow with his people to an intimately loving marriage, and made this agreement with them as a solemn vow, or covenant. Even though God did protect them, provide lavishly for them, and love them with a forever love, they often wanted to be like all the other nations and do as they wished but still reap the benefits of God’s heart toward them and the vow they shared.

God warned them over and over not to reject his love but to return to him. Yet over and over they chose other lovers and then pretended that these lovers had been the providers all God had lavishly given them. Their commitment broken over and over, God eventually gave them over to their lovers, in this case the country of Babylon who battered and cruelly broke them.

God’s heart was that they return to him and to the covenant they once shared, and so, in the middle of their slavery to their lover Babylon, he offered them hope. A certain hope based on his love for them, and his power to affect change once they chose to return to him.

Jeremiah 29:10-11 MSG

As his own people languished in slavery to Babylon seventy years, they remembered what God had done for them, and how he had loved and cared for them. Their hearts warmed, as they envisioned his past mercies. Such memories comforted them as they faced reality. During this time, someone penned the following verses, recorded in the Bible, as God offered them his love and hope in the middle of all they faced.

Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT

Maybe you relate. I know I do.

How you and I fit into God’s hope story

This same God offers each of us the same hope by offering us the same opportunity to return to him. He offers us a plan of restoration, just as he offered his people so long ago. A man named Paul clearly laid out the reality of our choices:

Galatians 6:7-8

The prophet Joel also gives us our remedy:

Joel 2:12 NLT

Maybe you once cried out to God in your pain, yet your requests seemed to vanish into thin air. The God of the universe heard, but is not a Santa Claus who forever gives without expectation. He wants you in all your brokenness. He wants to bring you to himself and offer you all he offered his people so long ago, with the same vow. You don’t need to clean yourself up first. You can’t. But he can clean you up and give you a life you could never have imagined on your own. I know.

I have discovered that what he offers is far and above all I could ever give him. His hope realized is a life of purpose and identity with a love no man can offer.

GOD OFFERS YOU THE SAME HOPE

Let me end this post with a song that beautifully expresses the hope I have found, and the hope God offers you through Jesus. The first lines of the lyrics exclaim:

How great the chasm that lay between us
How high the mountain I could not climb
In desperation, I turned to heaven
And spoke Your name into the night
Then through the darkness, Your loving-kindness
Tore through the shadows of my soul
The work is finished, the end is written
Jesus Christ, my living hope

God’s offer stands. The choice is yours. He’s just waiting for you to decide – go your own way and hope it works well eventually, or go with Jesus and receive a living hope you could never have imagined, despite what goes on around you.

May I pray for you?

Lord, you see and hear the cries of this dear one. You see their desperation. Reveal Jesus to them. Show yourself loving and compassionate beyond their imaginations. Give them they hope they long for, through Jesus Christ, for you are more loving and compassionate than they could ever imagine. In Jesus’ name, amen.

To grow in a new relationship with Jesus, and/or to find help in your pain, click this link for resources

What if You’ve Misjudged God?

What if You’ve Misjudged God?

by | Apr 9, 2021 | Is There Relief for the Pain?, What Does a Relationship With God Look Like?

So often people assume the pain and suffering in the world are the results of either an absent or uncaring Father (God). However, there are so many Bible verses that speak to God’s tender care over his children. Why the discrepancy between what we seem to see and what God states about himself?

Psalm 23 is one of the passages in the Bible that compares God’s tenderness and care of his people to a shepherd. It made me wonder, what this psalm (or poem) would look like if the sheep wanted to choose their own way rather than follow the shepherd? How would this psalm change and how could this help us possibly gain a different view of God?

This post takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what that might look like and then examines the promises God gives for those who follow the shepherd’s voice.

PSALM 23

God my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.

I don’t need a thing? What about all the stuff I want? God, why are you so legalistic?

You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.

But I wanna go where I wanna go. (I don’t understand why I feel so anxious.)

Even when the way goes through death valley, I am not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.

God, where are you now? Why have you allowed this pain? This says you go through it with your sheep, so why don’t I sense you anywhere? Why do I feel so unprotected and vulnerable?

You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.

I like what the world offers better. It tastes better, feels better, looks better. But why do I always end up wanting more? When it gets quiet and I have time to think, why do I feel so empty?

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of my God for the rest of my life. (The Message Translation)

I have a lot of things chasing after me. Drugs, alcohol, sex, status, and possessions, but nothing ends up like what you say you offer me. What would it look like to have God’s beauty and love chase after me? Is it possible? Would he be willing to welcome me in his home?

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I am back home in the house of God. Psalm 23:6

WHAT IF YOU’VE MISJUDGED GOD’S HEART TOWARD YOU?

Isaiah 53:6 states, “All of us like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s path to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him [Jesus] the sins of us all.”

Could it be that:

  • What you are now experiencing isn’t the result of God’s neglect but your own choices to go your own way?
  • Could it be that your pain is compounded because others in your world have done the same, all focusing so much on their own way they hurt everyone around them?
  • Have your judgments about God come through your longings to go your own way rather than on the reality of who God is?

WHAT IF YOU’VE MISJUDGED GOD’S PATH FOR YOUR LIFE?

Psalm 23 depicts God’s intentions for you. But God’s intentions can only be realized if you follow his personal shepherd. Making a personal choice to refuse results in natural consequences even God may not have chosen for you because makes no promises if you follow another shepherd or venture out on your own. God’s appointed shepherd is Jesus Christ:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for hte money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.

I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.

John 10:11-19 (NLT)

Could your current pain be caused by misjudging God and going your own way? Could it also be your pain has been caused by others who have misjudged God and therefore misrepresented him to you? Not everyone who called themselves by Jesus’ name actually know him. You will know someone has met Jesus, the great shepherd, when they speak the totality of God’s Word in love and grace, and when they act like Jesus.

Peace be still...

GOD’S LONGINGS FOR THE LOST AND HURTING

In Psalm 23, God likens himself to a loving shepherd. In the New Testament, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. He had a lot to say about those who considered themselves shepherds of God’s “flock” but don’t act as God would toward his children, causing others to misjudge him.

One day Jesus told a story to a bunch of religious people who thought they spoke for God, but didn’t, because they had no heart for lost sheep. Many misjudged God because of it. Jesus came to set the record straight:

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people – even eating with them!

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to sarch for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Luke 15:1-7 (NLT)

Do you think maybe you’ve misjudged God? Do you feel like a lost sheep in need of being found? God’s good shepherd, Jesus, is right here. Right now, So simply tell Jesus that you are ready for a shepherd and you want to become part of his family. He’ll make certain your request is granted. He and his father love lost and hurting sheep.

Want to dialogue further, Comment below or contact me privately at soulcries@rlseaton.com.