Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5
“Chocolate,” my three year old granddaughter semi-asks and semi-demands…
I give her “the look”…
The look every parent and grandparent gives…
And reply with “the question”…
The question every parent and grandparent asks…
“How do you ask nicely?”
“Chocolate, please?”
“Very good,” I say…and hand her a piece of chocolate.
Just then my wife comes into the room.
“Why did you give her chocolate?”
“She asked nicely.”
“But dinner is in twenty minutes.”
Listening to the conversation, my granddaughter smiles and eats the last bite of chocolate before somebody can take it away from her.
“Ask nicely…”
Ask nicely and you may get what you want…
even if it’s not what you need.
Sometimes I approach God with that attitude, believing…
If I pray in just the right way…
If I use just the right words….
God will give me what I want…
I hope.
In other words, I hope I have the skill and the intelligence to craft a prayer that will move the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth…
The One who knows my every thought before I even think it.
Kind of foolish, don’t you think, to put my hope in myself instead of in Him?
But my foolishness gets worse…
I don’t just put my hope in myself to know how to lay my requests before God…
I put my hope in myself to know what to ask for in the first place, even though God tells me that’s not true…
“…. We do not know what we ought to pray for…” Romans 8:26
If you asked me, I would say I do not put my hope in myself…
I might even piously quote the words of the old hymn…
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness ~ My Hope is built
I would say my salvation comes from Christ alone…
“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
And yet I stand before God and ask Him for what I want…
Putting my hope in my own knowledge of my needs…
Carefully planning how I will ask…
Putting my hope in my own meager cleverness before an all-powerful, all knowing God…
How patiently He reminds me in those moments that…
It is Him and Him alone I should seek…
It is in Him and Him alone I can trust…
It is in Him and Him alone I can hope…
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him. Psalm 62:5
2 thoughts on “In Whom Is Our Hope?”
Thank you Brother in causing to take note, and see and check in with Father to nit go astride if the self that Paul tells us to have no confidence in Phil 3 thank you again for listening with in to Father’s lead to say and do as Christ showed us all this in his walk alone by Faith in Father in Spirit and truth e was led to say or do, and just trusted no matter what others thought. said or did all in love with Mercy to us by the cross of
Finished the stress of to be perfect in Father by his death for in our place of to get new life, in Spirit and truth of Yeweh and be free to be in Love and Mercy to all, fighting no one, and trusting Father to do the increasing of the planting and watering he does through us to all to see belief is the way in Christ only, as Christ plain and simply said this, that easy, just not easy to come to see this, hard laboring to see this is involved first as Peter said this, for he would know as many mistakes as he made before coming the full truth of Faith alone over time all God and he just God’s vessel to be used by god in his willingness to be used, free will Amen to you Brother
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