Holding on to Hope

Philippians 1:12-14

Lord after this suffering, let it be said that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel. As a result make my Savior clear to all those around me. Because of my suffering and willing perseverance, cause others to be encouraged to speak the Word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

I was asked, by my friend Theresa Donlon, to co-lead a bible study called Holding onto Hope, based on the book of Job. God has laid this study on Theresa’s heart to share how God has been using it to heal the areas of hurt and devastation over the loss of her daughter Anne. This hurt is so fresh and raw for her and God is using it to make a huge impact on the women who attend. If you have time today please say a prayer for us and the women who are attending this Bible Study, there are many women who are attending that have lost children and of course many others that have experienced many other types of loss. It is intense and heavy and tonight from 7-9 will be our second meeting. I just finished the final few notes on the part that I am teaching and thought I would jump on here and share last week’s notes with you.  

When I asked God to reveal to me what part I was to bring to the table for this study he began to etch this visual in my mind.

But before I share with you what that is I want to tell you so of the fears that I had from it.

1^st I want you to know that I am not a counselor and by no means a grief counselor, however we do live under the covenant of The Counselor and God was sure to tell me that he needed nothing from me other than to be obedient. As a matter of fact he kept giving me this verse, Isaiah 44:24 This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,. In other words…He’s got this.

I want to make sure most of all that I do not water down what the word of God says about loss and how we are to handle it in our walk with Him. After researching all of this I began to worry about offending you or somehow watering down your grief and your feelings that you are having over it. If that ever happens please know that it was not intentional, we all grieve differently and at a different pace, if you ever question something that I say please pull me to the side (or e-mail me in this case) before small group and talk to me about it. We want this to be a safe place to share our hearts and walk through this together.

My prayer for each of us, including myself, is that we walk away from this bible study feeling better equipped with what the Word of God says about all this and to walk away with some healing and freedom over it. Not that life will go back to normal or that the hurt and the sadness will all be washed away, but that we will be able to conform to the new normal and receive His blessings and grace over our life so that ultimately He will be glorified through our tragedies.

Ok, so what we will be studying together are these 3 topics.

1.     The calm before the storm – I believe this is the place that we spend most of our time in. When life is moving right along and things are as normal as they ever will be, a time where there is nothing real pressing.

2.     Raging waters – I think this is the place that most of us are currently in. This is probably the reason that brought us here to this study. This is a place that has plucked us from our normal routine and thrown us into the middle of the ocean in the midst of a raging storm surrounded by the raging waters.

3.     Still waters – This is my favorite, this is where God carries you out of the storm into the calmness of his cove. A place of rest and peace and an overwhelming pouring out of God’s love.  

I believe that at any time in our life here on this earth we can put ourselves into one of these categories.

I’m going to tell you something that may make you uncomfortable or that many of us do not want to hear…

The enemy wants this tragedy, whether it is loss of a loved one, a marriage, financial loss or the loss of peace of mind due to a sickness, whatever it may be. The enemy literally wants this to be the death of you. It says right here in John 10:10, ¹⁰ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

What you need to know here is this, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior you need to know that He will not allow that to happen.

You see when we become a child of God the Holy Spirit dwells within us. We do not serve a God that is laid in a grave. He is risen and seated at the right hand of God. There is power in His name; there is power in the Words that God has given us. He is our Healer, our counselor and deliverer and we can rest assured that He is fully equipped to protect us from the ultimate schemes of the enemy.

I think what happens to so many of us is that we are so blindsided by these storms. Before we know what has hit us we find ourselves in the midst of these raging waters, in the midst of the storm, and although we are hanging on to our life vest, meaning the Word of God, we are barely staying afloat. The water is crashing over our heads and we are doing everything that we know how to do to keep from drowning.

It is so intense and overwhelming for us that we never realize that the enemy has come along and slipped a rope around our leg with a 1000 pound anchor tied to it, and my friend…it is dragging us under. He knows that not only can we spiritually and emotionally become exhausted over this but we will eventually physically give out and not be able to stay afloat anymore.

Listen; don’t think that I sit around talking about the enemy all the time and giving him credit for the bad things that are happening in my life. I do however believe that there are times it is appropriate and we need to stand up call it what it is and deal with it so we can move on from it.

It is time that we cut the ties that are binding us to the things that are pulling us under. Galatians 5:1 says, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.^(A) Stand firm,^(B) then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

And when we are freed from that, then we are able to be tossed back and forth in His waves of mercy and grace and His love will wash over our soul. You see, we still have to ride out the storm for some reason there is no getting around that, but it can’t last forever.

It is just like anything else we experience; God wants to carry us out of the storm a changed person. When we enter into the still waters with him we are forever changed. We then began to see how he has molded into the person he wants us to be to fulfill the plan He has for your life.

We may never understand why God allowed this thing to take place in our life, we may never get the answers we are looking for until we are in eternity with Him. One thing I do know is that if morning by morning we are still waking up, even when we don’t want to, we have to make the decision to make. Are we going to live this life out in Victory and Freedom or are we going to give in to defeat?

2 Corinthians 4:7-10  But we have this treasure in jars of clay^(A) to show that this all-surpassing power is from God^(B) and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side,^(C) but not crushed; perplexed,^(D) but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted,^(E) but not abandoned;^(F) struck down, but not destroyed.^{(G) 10} We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,^(H) so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.^(I)

There is power in our God, and there is hope and healing waiting for us.

I’ll close with this and can’t wait to get into this next week, the writer Nancy gives us scripture resources for the reading chapters in our study. The very 1^st one she lists is this.

Isaiah 43:2, When you pass through the waters,^(A)
I will be with you;^(B)
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,^(C)
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.^(D)

I don’t know about you but that is encouraging to me.

I hope you realize that this was just my notes to keep me on track and there was a lot more shared within the group. I’m hoping that Theresa will want to post her notes here too so you can get the full story.

If you live in the Magnolia area and feel that this study is something you need then please come join us. We meet at Magnolia Bible Church off of Nichols Sawmill Road. It is from 6:30-9 (study starts at 7, we visit and snack on desserts until then) on Tuesday nights. We would love to have you!