Demoralisation is their primary weapon, and their main tactic is gaslighting. It's exhausting to see something clearly and yet have people tell bare faced lies about it over and over again. Maybe for you today it's the elections, 9/11, vaccines, Ivermectin, political corruption, critical race theory... Whatever it is, trust yourself, trust God, ask him to keep guiding you towards the truth, and whatever you do, don't give up. Because as long as you don't give up, they can't win.
Dig deep pedes, and go to the Source of all Life and ask for the truth, the strength, the encouragement, the wisdom, the patience, the kindness, the resolve and the courage that you need today.
In my mind I picture Hope as a walking staff that I carry. When I am feeling down I realize that I've set the staff down. We have to consciously hold Hope in our grasp and not let go. Jesus is my Hope.
Amen to that.
Maybe some people read this and they don't know what we mean when we say that Jesus is our hope. This is what I mean by that:
Examining the life of Jesus - focusing on him, on what he did, said and taught, and who that means he is - reveals in ever deepening detail what it means to live in a way that is ultimately fulfilling and meaningful. There is nothing to compare the life of Jesus with, because it is the deepest source of truth that there can ever be, and the more one looks, the more one sees the coherence and the beauty that is within him, and in fact comes from him. And so the life of Jesus - and what that reveals to us about He who is - mysteriously and inexplicably both 100% man and 100% God - brings with it a connection to something that we realise that we have been longing for - consciously or not - every single moment of our lives.
And so in this way we take the very first steps towards beginning to understand what he meant when he said I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. His words feed us when we are hungry, his spirit comforts us when we are lost, and his love reveals to us who we really are. Our imperfections, helplessness and brokenness are neither ignored nor diminished, but our relationship with them changes as we begin to grasp the scope of who God really is; his nature, his true capacity, his pure mercy and justice, and his constant and faithful love towards each of us.
All the limit is on the side of us, the recievers. There is no change or limit on the side of God - what he offers us is only limited by our readiness to hold out our hands and accept it, and even in that he is perfectly kind and patient, taking the first seed of acceptance that we are able to give him and carefully, gloriously nurturing it in a way that is unique and personal to each of us.
God partners with us, he weds himself to us, both as individuals and as a whole, and the more we let ourselves know of him, the more we are able to trust and open up to the fullness of who he really is.
Some of this is consistent with the teachings of the great religions of the world, but in Christ the greatness of God merges with the greatness of what it is to be a human, providing us with the perfect example of both human and divine. It is an example from which we never cease learning. And it is here, at the focal point that is Jesus, that we begin to realise that our deepest hope comes not from ourselves, and is not dependant on us or anything that we might say or do or believe. The true source of our hope is Jesus; the trust we come to have in him, the faith, the ever-growing expansion of our understanding of just how beautiful, just how worthy, just how powerful, just how mighty, just how good he really is.
That's a shorthand version of what it means to me to say that Jesus is my hope :)
So well stated. Thank you for that.