What is your response when you feel overwhelmed?  As you go through life there will be times when you feel despair.  How can you go on when all seems lost?  The Apostle Paul gives us sage advice,

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 15:13)

Notice how God is described – He is a God of hope.  Hope may be described as the sense that your situation will turn out for the best.  As we reflect upon the sovereignty of God we gain His perspective, 

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  (Romans 8:28)

God wants to fill you with all joy and peace.  This is a great promise, it is the antithesis of despair!  Joy is the ability to trust God despite your circumstances.  Peace is not simply the absence of conflict but it an overall sense of well being.  So how do you experience this joy and peace?

Paul gives us the answer, you can experience joy and peace as you trust in Him.  People have confided in me, “O, if I only had faith to believe.”  What they do not understand is that they demonstrate faith everyday.  The faith to believe in God is not all that different from the faith we exercise every day.  You flip a light switch and you have faith the light will come on.  You read an article on the internet and you believe it that it is true (okay, I’ll admit there are some differences between your faith in God and your faith in everyday circumstances since God is reliable).   The fact is we demonstrate faith everyday.  Many of us have traveled across the country in an airplane piloted by a young person we’ve never met (they look younger all the time to me, but I think it’s because I’m getting older).  I forget that the U.S. Navy was entrusting an airplane to me at the age of twenty-one.

So if I can believe man, who is at times fallible, then should I not believe an infallible, all-knowing, and wise God?  The Apostle John gives us this principle,

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son.  (1 John 5:9)

God is fully reliable and trustworthy and the degree to which I trust Him is the degree to which I can experience His joy and peace.  As I experience His joy and peace then I will abound in hope.  One of the greatest enemies you face is despair – a lack of hope.  This is one of the devil’s greatest tactics against you.  When I went through survival training our instructors impressed upon us that our greatest resource was hope.  We were taught that no matter how difficult the situation became that we would survive (and they did their best to teach us perseverance through trials).

You must realize that you don’t gain hope on your own.  Notice how Paul concludes his thought by showing that it’s by the power of the Holy Spirit that works within us.  People lament to me that it’s difficult to live the Christian life.  I respond that it’s not difficult – it’s impossible to live the Christian life apart from the enabling grace of God’s Holy Spirit.  You were not meant to live the Christian life in your own strength, you were designed to live in union with God in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am learning that there are no hopeless situations, but there are people who have grown hopeless about them.  Martin Luther King said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”  Are you in need of hope?   Read God’s word and find refreshment for your soul,

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  (Romans 15:4)

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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