When Your Hope Is Falling Apart

The past few weeks have transformed the world, as we knew it, into a world that we could not have imagined.  For the most part, the entire world has become quarantined.  The world that we knew, stopped.  No one living at this time has ever experienced anything like this.

A virus, COVID-19, or the Coronavirus appeared and not just our community was changed, but our city, our state, our nation, our world was changed.

It seems so far away now, but just three months ago, there was an excitement and expectation about the year 2020, and all that was coming.  Sharing goals, visions, resolutions — this was 2020, a new year, a new decade, a new beginning.  January and February seemed so promising, and then almost, seemingly, without warning, things began to change.  And quickly they did.

Unusual, unprecedented, unparalleled, unheard of — just a few of the descriptive terms that began to appear.  People and jobs were labelled “essential” and “non-essential.”  Offices, businesses, schools, and churches were closed.  The stock market went down, then down, then down again and again. Restrictions were made to distance people from each other.  Terms such as “social distancing,” that we had never heard of, became a part of every conversation.  Shortages of bottle water, paper towels, hand soap and sanitizers, and, yes, toilet paper.  Really?  Toilet paper?  True!

Predictions were made of a dark future that offered little hope.  Families began to huddle in their homes, with an unknown future.  As the number of positive cases of the virus increased daily, the number of positive cases of fear grew at an even greater rate.  Fear became more contagious than the virus.  How can something like this be happening?  How can I have such a positive control one day, and the next day my entire world is spinning out of control?  If this is a dream, please let me wake up soon.

It is difficult to maintain hope when everything around you shouts hopeless.  For a couple of days, it’s fairly easy.  For a couple of weeks, perhaps, not quite as easy, but for a couple of months, for many, hope begins to fade.  How can you get out of bed when you’re living in a pandemic?  How can you maintain steady hope when everything around you is shifting?

When life hits with uncertainty, there are a number of ways that people find to cope with it.  Among those are drugs, alcohol, and even denial.  For those who are Believers, hope can be found through prayer and a relationship with God.

God’s promises are true, and one clearly states that He will never leave us, or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).  God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).  In fact, there are 365 references in God’s Word instructing us not to fear, or be afraid.  There’s a promise for every day.  So, I really don’t believe that God wants us to be afraid, or lose hope in troublesome times.  But, what can you do “When Your Hope Is Falling Apart?”

If your hope is beginning to waver, and has even begun to fall apart, there are some simple, basic things (ABC) that you need to be reminded of:

1. Allow God to take control.  For all the control-freaks, during this pandemic, how long did it take you to realize that you weren’t really in control?  We, often, like to believe that we are in control, however, this is a false delusion, as many have come to understand.  God has a much better view of our situation, and is in a much better position to direct the outcome.  So why not release your grip, and allow God to control the trip?
2. Build your foundation on God’s promises.  Storms will always reveal your foundation.  Jesus gave an example in Matthew 7:24-27 when He talked about two builders, one who built on a rock and one who built on sand, and the result of both when a storm came.  The results were very different.  Build your foundation on the rock of God’s promises, and when the storms of life come and the shaking begins, you will have a firm place to stand.
3. Change your mindset.  We are instructed by Paul in Romans 12:2, to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  In times of crisis it is especially important who and what we listen you.  If you constantly listen to the report of the world, you will soon be conformed to that thinking.  You remember the old adage — garbage in, garbage out?  Choose to change your mindset by frequently listening to the truth of God’s promises.

Hopeless, or hope more?  Walking in, and maintaining hope is a daily choice.  It cannot be attained by “one and done.”  It is established by consistently and persistently choosing to believe the promises of God’s Word.  Enacting a daily priority of God’s promises is crucial, especially in a crisis.

Why are you downcast and discouraged?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  Psalm 42:5,11; 43:5

Still Believing!