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There Is Hope

From: Our Daily Journey

Feb 10, 2017

Read

Psalm 13:1-6
I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me (Psalm 13:5).

“When you hear the hard news, there are two diverging roads from which to choose. One’s despair—don’t go there. There is hope!” I wrote those lyrics as part of a song that shares what I’ve learned through a lengthy battle with cancer. Today I was talking with a thirty-year-old husband whose wife just found out she has breast cancer. As I strived to give him comfort and counsel, what I shared can be summed up in these words: Because of God, there is hope.

In Psalm 13, David expresses the raw emotions of someone who’s crushed—someone starving for hope. Four times he expresses to God the plaintive words “how long” (Psalm 13:1-2). He felt as if the Lord had forgotten him, and the “anguish” and “sorrow” were becoming more than he could bear.

We can all relate to David’s pain. A cancer diagnosis, a failing relationship, or the loss of something or someone we love can cause us to feel lost and alone. God can appear to be very distant.

The psalmist makes an important decision. He calls out to God, saying, “Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!” He prays out of desperation, knowing that only his Creator can “restore the sparkle to [his] eyes” and hope to his heart (Psalm 13:3).

Calling out to God even when it seems as if He’s far from us turns our eyes from our misery to Him and His mercy. Prayer plants the seed that allows hope to grow.

Finally, David chooses to “trust” in God and His “unfailing love” (Psalm 13:5). His circumstances hadn’t changed, but as he calls out to the Lord in prayer and trusts in His character, his heart erupts in praise—even rejoicing in song! (Psalm 13:6).

Which of the two “diverging roads” are you walking today? You can move from despair to hope by turning to God. Because He’s there, there is hope!

The  Advocate

From: Our Daily Bread

February 9, 2017

Read: 1 John 1:8–2:2 | Bible in a Year: Leviticus 6–7; Matthew 25:1–30

If anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1

From a Florida prison cell in June 1962, Clarence Earl Gideon wrote a note asking the United States Supreme Court to review his conviction for a crime he said he didn’t commit. He added that he didn’t have the means to hire a lawyer.

One year later, in the historic case of Gideon v. Wainright, the Supreme Court ruled that people who cannot afford the cost of their own defense must be given a public defender—an advocate—provided by the state. With this decision, and with the help of a court-appointed lawyer, Clarence Gideon was retried and acquitted.

Help us to know what it means to have the freedom of Your love and presence.

But what if we are not innocent? According to the apostle Paul, we are all guilty. But the court of heaven provides an Advocate who, at God’s expense, offers to defend and care for our soul (1 John 2:2). On behalf of His Father, Jesus comes to us offering a freedom that even prison inmates have described as better than anything they’ve experienced on the outside. It is a freedom of heart and mind.

Whether suffering for wrongs done by us or to us, we all can be represented by Jesus. By the highest of authority He responds to every request for mercy, forgiveness, and comfort.

Jesus, our Advocate, can turn a prison of lost hope, fear, or regret into the place of His presence.

Father in heaven, please help us to know what it means to have the freedom of Your love and presence. May we experience this freedom even in places that we have only seen as our confinement!

The one who died as our substitute now lives as our advocate.