Is There Any Hope at All?


We often feel that our life is with out hope, when we find ourselves face pain on a daily bases. It is this sense of hopelessness that can drive you to thoughts of suicide, or it can drive you straight into the arms of the Lord. The direction of your thoughts depend totally on how you choose to focus your attention. If your thoughts are totally on how God has failed to heal you, or on the future pain you know you are going to continue to feel, dark thoughts of ending your life will invade your thoughts. After all, it is human to want to be pain free. But if your thoughts are focused upon the Lord, the desire for life will always prevail over any dark thoughts, despite the reality of a future filled with pain.

If any one understand pain, Job did! He also understood, the struggle we all face when we dealing with pain on a daily bases. He understood lose, and he understood the emotional ups and downs, that we face on a daily bases. And he didn't always face them with a positive attitude.

Job was an upright man of God, who walked closely with God. Yet, his trial of illness and tragedy pressed his faith into a corner. Illness is very hard on faith. A tragedy that results in loss of property, of a job, or the loss of a love one can test the limits of our faith. A crisis of pain and illness can quickly become a trial of doubts, and begin to press hard on our faith. Doubts begin to play games with our minds, as we struggle to accept the limitations that have been placed upon our lives by our illness. We soon find ourselves lost in a world of confusion and uncertain concerning the future and what it holds for us.

Pain of illness speak a strange language , it plays tricks on our mind and on our emotions. When pain begins to bore through our body in waves , our minds begin to become clouded and we begin to imagine strange things like- God doesn't exist, God has gone on vacation, God is punishing me for being a sinful person, God doesn't care… Why me God?

When we are in physical pain, we often look towards God for the solution to our misery. And when that solution doesn't come as we expect it to come, we begin to blame either ourselves , God ,or satin. Some of us take on the same attitude as Job and begin to take upon ourselves the full responsibility for our own pain and illness. We begin to look into own life looking for one particular sin that we committed that cause God to believe that He had to punish us in such a painful way. On the other hand some of us choose to lay the blame directly on the door step of God, accusing Him of failing to fulfilling His responsibility as a loving father and heal our body of our infirmities. And some of us enter and endless battle against that powers of darkness, laying the blame for our illness squarely on satins doorstep. But as the battle rages, exhaustion of the fight set in and a sense of defeat fallows as our body continued to wage its own war against illness.

Whether we blame ourselves , blame God , or blame satin the results are the same , we begin to bow down to the destructive habit of self-pity. We soon find ourselves struggle with irrational thoughts like- If only God would heal me than my life would be happier. If only God would heal me than I would have friends I could depend upon . If only God would heal me than I could do His work fulfill His calling upon my life. If only God would heal me than I would have a closure relationship with my husband. If only God would stop punishing me, If only I could figure out where I had gone wrong. If only satin would bow to the authority of Jesus……..If only! If only!!!

I have learned that blaming ourselves, God , or satin (for that matter) is counter-productive. Laying the blame paralyze our minds and effect our faith. As we give into our habit of laying the blame, and giving into doubts we begin to feel immobilized by despair and depression. We soon begin to be over whelmed by a sense of the hopelessness of our situations and thoughts of suicide begin to invade our mind.

As Job gave into his thoughts of despair, Gods answer to Jobs was simple, Gird up now thy loins like a man (Job 38:3). In other words, rise up and be a man…. Or a women of self-respect. Stop wallowing in the garbage pit of despair!

A Light of Hope

One of my favorite scriptures of HOPE is ( Mark 5:25-26) It says: And a certain women which had an issue of blood twelve years, and suffered many things of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was nothing bettered , but rather grew worse. When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind , and touched His garment.

We don't even know her name , but we do know her situation. For twelve long years she suffered from excessive bleeding, caused by a disorder of the her uterus. Such a situation is difficult in our time to deal with, but in the era that she grew up in her condition was not only painful and hard to deal with , it also ostracized her from society. For a Jewess nothing could be worse, simple because, no part of her life was left unaffected….

* Socially - she had to separate herself from people because she was her religion said she was unclean
* Sexually- she could not be touch by her husband
* Maternally- she couldn't bare children
* Domestically- any thing she touched was considered unclean
* Spiritually - she was not allowed to enter the temple
* Emotionally -she was lost in a world of loneliness, despair and depression.

As a result, of her condition she was physically and emotionally exhausted.

She naturally sought out the care of the medical profession of her time. ( v 26) She spent all she had , adding financial strain to her stituation. Many people who have found themselves dealing with ongoing medical treatment, soon find themselves being hounded by creditors who demand payment . This can be as devastating to their self-respect as any physical pain. But nothing can ware you down faster than to realize that despite all the money that you have spent so far, nothing has helped to fix your health problem. In fact, despite the money that she spent on medical help, her condition grew worse.

This women, like so many of us, awoke every day to the reality that she most face another day of misery. But a glimmer of HOPE began to light her way, when she heard that a very important man of God was coming to her community. He was coming to help the daughter of an important man name Jairus. Her HOPE was born out of desperation , as she realized that unless she took a chance and reached out to Jesus, then the odds that she would die because of the complications associated with her condition was great. She also knew that she was considered unclean, so she couldn't in all conscience speak to Him, but if she could but touch His clothes maybe that would be enough. For she said, if I may touch His clothes, I shall be whole ( Mark 5:28) Her FAITH was not based on what she knew as a reality in her life, but on the change she HOPED would happen once she reached out and touched Jesus. For Faith is the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

As she walked towards the crowd she knew that she was taking a chance. She knew that she would have to touch the people around her, and if any of them recognized her she would find her self being rebuked and pushed away, and in the process lose her chance to be cured. But what other choice did she have? She has no money left for medical treatment, and besides there was no medical solution to her problem. But what she does have is HOPE in Jesus.

God greatest gift to His children has been the ability to HOPE. HOPE allows us to look beyond our pain and fear of the future. HOPE allows us to look at our marriage and see what it could be, and not what it is. HOPE gives us the strength to face another day of pain and uncertainty. HOPE guided the hand of this desperate women as she reached out and touched Jesus. Her HOPE was rewarded as she reached out touched Him, for immediately she felt His healing power flow through her. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she had been healed of that plague. ( Mark 5:29)

Jesus knew the minute that He had been touched. He had been touched before by many people, after all He was always in a crowd. But this touch was different, because it touched the very Spirit that resided with Him. Jesus looked into her eyes and saw her inner pain and realized that it took great courage and faith to do what she had done. And He said to her in His gentle way; …..Daughter they faith has made thee whole, go in peace and be whole of thy plague. (Mark 5:34)

We know with out even thinking to much about it, that this women never forgot Jesus or what He had done for her. And that she spent the rest of her life resting in the peace that His healing had brought into her life. In fact, she could have even been the women Veronica, who walked beside Him as He carried the cross to Calvary and whipped the blood from His forehead. Or one of the women that knelled at the foot of the cross, with tears of compassion flowing down their check. But whether she was Veronica or not it really doesn't matter. What really matters is that one moment of HOPE, one action of FAITH was all it took to change her life forever.

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