Hope in failure

Even when we fail. Because we will.  
We have HOPE.

Through God’s amazing grace, 

He helps us along our journey… 

Life gets in the way of the things we want to or need to do.  We fall down.  We mess up.  We start to question why we have even started down this path...

Thankfully, when we go to God's Word, we find someOne who is there to pick us up.  Lamentations 3:22-24 offers us this hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love 

  First, there was God’s love.  God is love (1 John 4: 8, 16).  And it is so BIG, so great, as high as the heavens above the earth, we can’t imagine it (Psalm 103:11).  Nothing can separate us from it (Romans 8:35-39)!

we are not consumed, 

  Since Christ laid down his life for us so we would not perish, we don't get what we deserve (John 3:16).  Our sins are as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).  Praise the Lord, we are not be swallowed up in the pit of our own despair.  We can be our own worst enemies at times, can’t we? Our own harshest critics? But God has paid the price and we do not have to call this the final fail!

for his compassions never fail. 

  God shows us never-ending mercy (Psalm 23:6, Ephesians 2:4-5).  It doesn’t matter how many times we mess up.  How many times we fall off the wagon.  How many times we do the wrong thing, AGAIN.  His compassion for us, His never ending LOVE will not leave us. Without fail.

They are new every morning; 

  It’s a fresh start.  Like a new day.  He washes us white as snow (and boy don’t a lot of us have that mental picture right now!).  Every single day.  Not just once.  Or the last time we messed up.  Every time.

great is your faithfulness.

  How can you not yell out from the top of your roof, your garage, the top of your car right now??!!  My God is faithful (Deut 7:9, 2 Thes 3:3)!  He will NEVER leave us.  Write that on the notepad of your heart.  Go ahead and underline it and highlight it.  Never.  He is faithful until the end.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; 

  Now, this is our part.  Can you truly say that the Lord is all you need?  Your portion (Psalm 73:26).  Jehovah-Jireh.  The God who provides.  Like the Israelites who wandered the desert in Exodus 16, who cried out for the food they had in Egypt.  Is God enough? Or will you run to other things for comfort?  To food.  To cigarettes. To drugs. To alcohol.  To cutting.  Anything that brings you temporary comfort is taking God’s place.  Notice I said temporary?  Only God can fill that God- shaped hole in our hearts.  He alone is our portion.

therefore I will wait for him.”

  So how do we respond?  We wait (Isa 40:31; Psalm 130:5).  We don’t run to the frig. We don't run off to find the next "big thing." We control our impulses. We go to His Word. We pick up the bible and let Him fill us. He is our portion, and wait on Him to provide our needs. He knows what it is. Even before we speak.  Sometimes we don’t even have to use words…

Lamentations 3:25 goes on to say, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”

...Sometimes while I am waiting on the Lord, I go to my place. Not a physical place. But that mental place where I go to sit and have a conversation with Jesus.

My place is a cabin on the top of the mountain.  Two rocking chairs on the front of a porch overlooking the mountain vistas.  I sit in one.  Jesus sits in the other.  Sometimes we just rock, spending time together.  Other times, we have a conversation about my day or what is going on in my life.  Sometimes it’s just a few words.  But I listen.  And WAIT.

How will you listen to God's voice today?  What is He asking you to do (or not do)?  Seek Him right now.  He's waiting...