Enduring incredibly difficult situations is nothing new. Yet, one seems insufferable. Trying to live without hope.
It is when life seems darkest, we need to remember who our God is. God is not limited by what is possible for us.
When Sarah laughed at the notion that her husband at the age of 100 and she at 90 would have a child together, God interrupted the doubt with a question (Genesis 17:17-18; 18:11-14). “Is anything too difficult for the LORD?” A year later, this elderly couple was staying up late at night with the cries of their new born son.
When the unstoppable super power of the day had swallowed up all the surrounding nations and destroyed every fortress with only Jerusalem remaining, God promised that the invading king would not shoot a single arrow against Jerusalem’s walls (Isaiah 37:33). The following morning Assyria’s army lay dead.
When our lives have been broken and destroyed by sin, God’s power can achieve what we cannot do for ourselves. God can make us alive with Christ giving us spiritual life and an undeserved future inheritance (Ephesians 2:3-7). In fact, God is able to do far more abundantly within the life of a believer beyond all that we might ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).
As long as we possess life, hope lives for what God can do in our lives. Hope exists because of who God is. And for those who die in the Lord, the greatest of hopes then becomes reception.