Words Of Hope For Hurting Hearts
My heart hurts. Last month three people I know passed into eternity. This week I learned that a dear Christian sister has entered hospice while another friends’ adult son is clinging to life due to a severe illness. I have spent much time in prayer for the families.
While living in this world can be absolutely beautiful and amazing there are other times that bring us to our knees . Do you have a prodigal child that keeps you awake at night? Have you lost a job and are staring at the bills pouring in? Maybe you are facing a health issue that is overwhelming. Have you lost someone very dear to you? Fill in the blank____. Sometimes loss and grief are so intense we ache mentally, physically and spiritually. God sees and hears us even if a simple prayer is all we can muster.
A simple prayer of David. Psalm 130:title–2 (The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language)
Help, GOD—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.
A prayer of Jonah from the belly of a whale . Jonah 2:2 (The Message)
He prayed: “In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to GOD. He answered me. From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’ You heard my cry.
Our hope is based on His Word to us because He is trustworthy.
Psalm 121:1–4 (ESV) God is on call 24/7
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. (Creator and Sustainer of earth) He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
Lamentations 3:21–23 (ESV) God’s love and faithfulness never ends
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Sometimes the circumstances we face are there to build our faith muscles. The very definition of biblical hope is trusting God and believing Him for what you cannot see. This hope is based on His attributes and past provision. Gratitude also plays a part in our hope as we count our past blessings and look above our current situation. It is a shield and a pathway forward. But we are all without real hope if we don’t have God in our lives in this world. Rick Warren said, “God never wastes a tear. There is a purpose in our pain”.
2 Corinthians 1:4 (The Message)
He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.
Jeremiah 29:11–12 (ESV)
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.
“Hope is also beginning to reveal its value in scientific studies. Among young adults with chronic illnesses, greater degrees of hope are associated with improved coping, well-being, and engagement in healthy behaviors. It also protects against depression and suicide. Among teens, hope is linked with health, quality of life, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose. It is an essential factor for developing both maturity and resilience. From Harvard Health “Why Hope Matters”July 16, 2021 Here is a scientific study to prove what believers have know for millenia.
1 Peter 1:3–4 (ESV) This is the HOPE of Easter
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
We serve a living God. Jesus’s death for our sins and resurrection from the grave gives us victorious power to live each day when we walk with Him. He sees us, hears us and knows us by name. Yes, God answers prayer. We have a living and active hope through Him not just nice thoughts and wishes.
John 14:1–3 (ESV) We have a future in eternity
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
John 14:27 (ESV) His peace is based in faith not circumstances
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
1 John 5:13–15 (ESV)
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
