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Episode 029\\u2014Hope for the Hopeless

I am afraid there is an epidemic of hopelessness that has been sweeping over the world in the last few months. Even as we begin to open our doors and peek out at the world, we are unsure of the future. We are unsure of what will happen next. It\\u2019s almost like we are just waiting for the other shoe to fall.\\xa0

Our nation and the world is reeling from the fact that we cannot seem to save people from this invisible enemy and so we stand with arms limp not knowing what to do, which direction to turn or where to go.\\xa0

We are hopeless.

All the while, the evil one sits back and laughs at us. Remember He has one objective because at his core he is a thief. He wants to steal, kill and/or destroy us and our effectiveness for the Kingdom of God. He wants to steal our impact on the world around us. He was to destroy our credibility. But more than anything he wants to kill us because that will take us out for good or so he thinks.\\xa0

Hope

Yet in that same verse, God embeds a whole universe of hope. Because God sent Jesus to the world with a different agenda. When He came He brought with Him the ability to give us everything in abundance,\\xa0more than we expect\\u2014life in its fullness until we overflow! John 10:10 TPT.

Our Hope lies in Him and yet we run to so many other things looking for that elusive thing called hope. We hope our money will get us through. We hope our government will figure something out to protect us. We hope our doctors and scientists will find a cure. We hope we can hide long enough so this plague can\\u2019t find us. We hope that eating all this food will make us feel better.

Although many of those things may help us temporarily, our real hope is found in the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He has a plan and His plan will be carried out. Nothing will stop it! The evil one will try, like a villain in some world-wide video game. The problem is he has never been able to understand that there is a Maker of this game called life and in the final analysis, God wins.\\xa0

The Marathon Called Life

We follow God because He already knows the plan of our lives. He not only knows it, He tells us that the plans He has for us are plans for good and not for disaster, to give us a future and a hope. Jer. 29:11 NLT.\\xa0

In Hebrews 11, the writer goes through a list of great men and women of faith. Then Hebrews 12 starts out \\u201cTherefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.\\u201d

We are in a marathon race and there are things that hold us back from running the race. I always saw the word \\u201cweight\\u201d as related to me physically. I can\\u2019t run a race if I am carrying 50, 100, or 200 extra pounds.\\xa0

When I weighed\\xa0 250 pounds more than I do now I could barely walk, much less run any kind of race. I could still be wallowing in that issue and difficulty, but I know and I even knew and believed then that is the Jesus the Author and Finisher of my life and had a different kind of story He wanted me to live. I just needed to get on board with the script He had already for me. I needed hope.

The word \\u201chope\\u201d today has come to mean wishful thinking. I hope this virus won\\u2019t come to my family. I hope we have enough money to make it through this crisis. I hope we can get groceries.\\xa0

However, the biblical definition is something entirely different. It is the confident expectation of what God has promised. The strength of that isn\\u2019t in what I believe. It is in God\\u2019s ability to be faithful.\\xa0

The Lie I Believed

When I was a kid I heard my mother and grandmother talking about how much weight I had gained and how they kept just having to buy me bigger and bigger clothes.

\\u201cIt\\u2019s like she can\\u2019t stop gaining weight,\\u201d my mother said. She was frustrated at having to buy me new clothes with a small budget. \\u201cI can\\u2019t lose weight\\u201d began to take root in me as a truth.

I had allowed this emotion of hopelessness to become one of my core life values.\\xa0 When the feeling of hopelessness came, there was only one recourse for me. I would eat, preferably something made with sugar and flour, something like my grandmother would have made.

I Am Weak

The reality of how to stop eating sugar was the challenge, though. I was, and still am, like Paul. I have a weakness. Scripture doesn\\u2019t tell us what Paul\\u2019s weakness was. It does tell us he asked God three times to remove it.

Paul says, \\u201cThen He told me, \\u2018My grace is enough; it\\u2019s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.\\u2019\\u201d 2 Cor. 12:9 MSG

Paul learned humanity has limitations. Those limitations, though, are not reasons to quit. They should lead us to understand, the weaker we get, the stronger we become,\\xa0when we rely totally on God\\u2019s strength instead of our own.

As I surrender to God each day, I find renewed hope in the grace and strength that He pours into my life.\\xa0 Whatever He calls me to do, I can do it because it is not my strength I\\u2019m drawing from. It is His.

Overcomers Academy Link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/