October '26

 

May the God of hope fill you will all joy & peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  -Romans 15:13

I've been staring at this painting for the last two hours.

My heart and soul feel so empty right now.  I've written and deleted paragraphs over and over again.  After I write them, I delete them because they are not authentic.  They feel cheesy and fake.  So here's the real deal:  I am struggling with hope right now.  I am wrestling with Jesus through some things that are hard and heavy and drain all my energy.

This verse is about hope.  The context is Paul essentially sharing that there is hope for all people to be grafted in to the family of God.  I got a little carried away with the context, so I created a little study guide.  You can use it or not.  Even if you don't do the study part, I do recommend reading Romans 15 in it's entirety.  That will provide so much crucial context to this month's verse. You can access the text here and the study pages here. 

The word for hope here is:

 ἐλπίς elpís, el-pece'; from a primary ἔλπω élpō (to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstractly or concretely) or confidence:—faith, hope. 

Joy is defined as: 

χαρά chará, khar-ah'; from G5463; cheerfulness, i.e. calm delight:—gladness, × greatly, (X be exceeding) joy(-ful, -fully, -fulness, -ous).

 Peace is defined as:

εἰρήνη eirḗnē, i-ray'-nay; probably from a primary verb εἴρω eírō (to join); peace (literally or figuratively); by implication, prosperity:—one, peace, quietness, rest, + set at one again.

Believe/trust are defined as: πιστεύω pisteúō, pist-yoo'-o; from G4102; to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), i.e. credit; by implication, to entrust (especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ):—believe(-r), commit (to trust), put in trust with.

These are all according to Strong's Greek Dictionary.

May the God of hope fill you will all joy & peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

This verse leads me to ask 2 questions.

Who is God?  

What happens when we trust in Him?

God is the source of hope.  He is the source of our anticipation, expectation, and confidence.  He is the one who fills us with joy and peace as we trust Him.  If He is the one we hope in, then He is the one who can bear the weight of hope.  We entrust Him to hold us in hope- we commit to trust Him and He holds us up.

Hebrews 11:1-2 expands upon this idea of hope.  It says: "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  This is what the ancients were commended for."  The rest of the chapter lists everything requiring faith from creation to what I suspect was their modern day reality.  It specifically names:

Creation

Abel

Enoch

Noah

Abraham

Sarah

Isaac

Jacob

Joseph

Moses' parents

Moses

the people of Israel passed through the Red Sea as on dry land

the people of Israel obeyed God and the walls of Jericho fell

Rahab

Gideon

Barak

Samson

Jephthah

David

Samuel

the prophets

women who received back their dead

those who were tortured and killed

The chapter ends by saying: "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." -Hebrews 11:39-40

What?!

They were commended for being confident in what they could not see, but none of them received what had been promised.  The verse says, "God had planned something better..."  This is where faith and hope must meet.  The plan that I think the author is getting at is that not only was God going to the the Father of Israel, but He was going use Israel to bless the whole world.  It was through them that God would bring forth a Messiah to save them and to save us.  God's plan was bigger than one people- His plan was to save all the world through His Son, Jesus Christ.  The trick here is to trust that God's plans are always good, even when it feels so terrible.

Think about the disciples.  What must they have been thinking and feeling the Friday night that their Messiah had been killed and buried?  I wonder if it caused them to question: Was Jesus just a man? Have I wasted the last three years of my life by following Him?  Is it my fault that He's dead?  I don't think without the help of the Holy Spirit they were comprehending what all God was doing.  Those are the most important 72 hours in the history of the world.  Yet, I wonder if they spent part of that time sitting in the dark with tear stained faces.

May the God of hope fill you will all joy & peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Hope is like the wick of a candle in a dark room.  Without the fire, it's just dark and doesn't help anything.  But when you add the fire, then you can see what's around you.  Paul is telling us this month that our God is a God of hope and by trusting Him [trusting His character, trusting His heart] we are able to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter, our Guide (see John 14).  

If, like me, you find yourself lacking in the hope department- ask God to help you.  There is power in the name of Jesus- so say His name.  Say it over and over again.  Let your brain build a neuro pathway that leads to Jesus when all feels lost.

If you are in such a hard place that you don't believe you can trust Him, you're not alone.  You are seen.  You are wanted.  You are loved.  He isn't going anywhere because you (like me) have little faith.  He didn't forsake Adam and Eve, and He won't forsake you either.  When Adam & Eve sinned, they were afraid and knew they were naked.  You know what God said to them in that moment?  He asked, "Who told you that you were naked?"  After some hard conversation, God made them garments & clothed them.

Why do I tell you this?  Because if you're faith is struggling, if all hope feels lost- you might ask yourself "what am I believing about God?"  And then ask, "who told me that?"  I often find when my faith is the most broken there has been a lie somewhere that I picked up and started believing.  It can be scary to put your faith in a God who has let you hurt before.  It's hard to trust Him when you feel as though He let you down.  It's only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can have hope in these moments.  It's only through Him that hope, joy, and peace can fill us up when we are empty.  He loves you so much, my friend.  He understands why it's hard.  I'm not saying it's okay to doubt God, but I am saying that when you doubt He is not going to slam the door on your relationship.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

If you, my fellow doubter, were the only human that would accept Him as Lord- I believe He still would have gone to the cross.  You are worth that much to Him, little lamb.  You have nothing to offer Him and He knows that and welcomes you anyway.

"May the God of hope fill you will all joy & peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." -Romans 15:13

Romans 15 :: English Standard Version (ESV). (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/rom/15/1/t_conc_1061013