Monday blog post July 9th

A Prayer For Hope To Be Abandoned In Order To Truly Find It  (Acts 27:1-20)

Lord, I know that everyone of us has either been or is in a storm of life.  Sometimes we find ourselves traveling in the storms of others and sometimes others are traveling in ours.  When the storm rages, when it batters us, when it seems unrelenting, we try so hard to find or to make a way out.  Our sight shifts from you Lord to earthly solutions.  We put our hope in temporary solutions, man made scheme's, in our own efforts and strength just like the sailors in Acts.  Those men relied on their knowledge then their strengths.  They had put their hope in the things of this world and yet despite it all the storm raged on.  Days and days passed and no glimpse of an end to the storm was able to be seen and those sailors found themselves exhausted, depleted of earthly solutions and they finally gave up all hope of being saved.  Lord, that is where many find themselves today or those they love, in a place where they have tried but no end is visible and they abandoned hope.  But I know this version of hopelessness is needed.  When our hope has been placed in our own vision of a resolution or restoration, in worldly knowledge, human strength, and earthly solutions, when our hope rests on our idea of a way out of the storm then, like the sailors of Acts, we are working and hoping in vain.  It is a human, flawed hope we have invested in.  Like the sailors, Lord, I believe you want each of us to get to a place where we finally give up all hope in our abilities to get out of a storm, give up all hope that our strength will be enough, give up all hope in our vision of the best solution. You want us to stop hoping in the temporary solutions this world offers and to start looking to the eternal hope of you.   Lord, I know that it is not until we give up and abandon these hopes that our hearts are left to look to the only hope that truly exists, the only hope that has lasting solutions, the only hope that gives strength and doesn't require it, the only hope that will sustain us when nothing else can or does.  Lord, it isn't until we abandon the hope that has bound us and weighed us down that we can find true hope in you.  Your hope, hope in you never fails, hope in you gives strength to the weak,  hope in you keeps us still when things continue to be uncertain, hope in you calms the heart, hope in you is not our vision of a solution but trusting in your perfect plan, hope in you is something to always cling to and bring joy to the soul when all else tells us there is nothing to be joyful about.  Lord, help us and those we love to see when we have put our hope in something other than you and let us completely abandon that hope and trust you to fill our hearts.  I thank you Lord that the sailors story in Acts doesn't end with hopelessness.  I thank you that tomorrow we can read about Paul's hope in this storm.  How he continued to keep focused on you and how you used him to redirect the hopeless sailors to the only source of true hope, you.  You didn't promise an easy end to the storm but you promised to see them through.  Lord, see us and those we love through every storm and may your spirit always be reminding us to abandon a useless hope so that we can put our full trust and confidence in the only hope that means anything.  May our hope be in you alone!

AMEN