Monday Morning Devotion-April 12, 2021
Hope So
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing Him.
He asked them: "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"
One of them, named Cleopas asked him: "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
"What things he asked?"
About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers had him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him; but we had HOPED that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.
Luke 24:13-21
"We had Hoped he was the one."
I love that Road to Emmaus story. I am always struck by those words the two men
told the stranger. "We had HOPED." It is so ironic that what they had hoped for and despaired as lost was right there with them in that very moment. Their hopes had been realized even though they didn't know it.
We are prisoners of hope. And this story makes me wonder how many times in my life things I had hoped for and prayed about had been gifted to me by the Lord without my even realizing it. That's because God works in mysterious ways and in His omniscience answers our prayers and causes circumstances to occur in the best way even though we don't understand that at the time.
As a fellow prisoner of hope you may just be wondering about those hopes you have that you are still waiting on to come to pass. Will it ever happen? Are you off base? Will it come about, but not in the way you wanted it to? Maybe you've prayed and you've prayed, and you are starting to think. "I might as well give up on that one. Ain't gonna happen."
Pastor Joel Osteen proposed this idea about those times when you despair of getting your hopes realized; "When your thinking enters that 'might-as-well-give-up mode" you are probably closer than you think to having those hopes be realized. You're close, consequently, Satan is turning up the heat. He's going all out to make you give up. Looks like a case of same-old-same-old and you are getting frustrated:
"Man, how long have I been pursuing this foolish idea. I might as well give up on it. I've had my hopes crushed too many times."
Osteen writes about why you are feeling that way: "The reason the pressure has been turned up is because you're close to your victory. The enemy would not be fighting so hard if he didn't know he was about to lose his grip on that situation."
He adds, "If you will keep believing, keep hoping, keep doing the right thing and if you stay strong for that final push, you will see the situation turn around. You'll see that promise come to pass.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a sportscaster. I liked to play baseball, but when I got old enough that those pitchers could throw a curve ball, my dream to be up in the booth broadcasting games, instead of playing them, got stronger. I hoped to one day broadcast the World Series on radio.
Through a long series of events including leaving my job in banking, taking a course in broadcasting, taking a job in small market radio, then in a little larger market. Then, to shorten this story I found myself in the press box broadcasting the World Series.
Okay, so it was the College World Series not the Major League Baseball World Series. I forgot to specify in my prayers which World Series I had high hopes for. :) But you know what? God had this in his plans for me all along.
Looking at my life today I realize that the chains that held me back and were making me a prisoner of hope were broken. Those hopes and dreams were answered by the Lord in a different way than I could have imagined. In fact, my "Hope So's" had been realized in such a powerful way that my life is continually being transformed by them to this very day.
I know sometimes life can get so messed up you aren't even sure what to hope for. It's kinda like working on a puzzle with about 1,000 pieces in it. You turn that box over and dump all those pieces on a table. Where do you start? It looks like a mess. Where do you start?
You have all those pieces, but they start to look alike. How will you ever put that thing together?
Well, you know that the puzzle is going to have four sides to it so you begin by looking for pieces that have a straight edge to them and see which ones of those you can fit together. That's a starting place. Then piece by piece it comes together until it makes a picture.
That's what hope does for you. It gives you a starting place. Every great accomplishment in life has started with the hope that something could be better than it was.
As he sat back many years later and viewed all that had come about in the Disney Empire, all the movies, TV shows, products, books, souvenirs, and gigantic amusement parks, Walt Disney remarked: "I only hope we don't lose sight of one thing. It was all started by a mouse."
That idea Walt Disney had to create a mouse as a cartoon character started it all. He first called that mouse…Steamboat Willie, who soon became Mickey Mouse.
The Lord can take the tiniest spark of hope and build it into something bigger than you could ever imagine and that is true no matter what age or stage of life you are in.
I encourage you to embrace hope. Keep believing that today is the day. Will it be?
I hope so. You just never know.
Prayer: Lord because of you we have hope in everything we do because we hope that our goals are pleasing in your sight. Amen!