PROMISES AND HOPE

Remember Your word to Your servant; You have given me hope through it. This is my comfort in my affliction: Your promise has given me life. — Psalm 119:49-50 CSB

Have you found yourself overwhelmed recently? Many heavy things are happening in our church, our community, and all around us. Circumstances and hardships seem to pile up on us. We have been navigating a lot of uncertainty over the past few weeks, and we are not alone. There is uncertainty in the job market, with health, with transportation, with just about everything. 

When we focus on our circumstances, we can fall into despair. We can let the weight of our hardships overwhelm our hearts. I read these verses as we did a family devotional, and they hit home. So often when we find ourselves in the midst of suffering or hardship, our prayers are for it to end. And while it is good for us to pray for the end of our trial and suffering, we also need to find hope through the trial. 

Notice what the psalmist says, “Remember Your Word to Your servant; You have given me hope through it.” We need to remember God’s Word. We need to look at His promises to us. We need to remember His promises of faithfulness and provision. We need to remember that He promises to be with us. He promises to hear us when we repent and call out to Him. His Word gives us hope because it is the truth.

The next verse really helped me: “This is my comfort in my affliction; Your promise has given me life.” The psalmist does not say that God’s promises were a comfort to him after he endured affliction; he says Your promises are a comfort to me in my affliction. We can find comfort in the midst of affliction. Too often we think that comfort will only come after the affliction is resolved. There is relief and great joy when God answers prayer and brings us out of affliction; however, there is also comfort in the midst of affliction. God is not only good when He delivers us, but He is also good in the midst of trials. Not only do God’s promises comfort us in the midst of affliction, but they also give us life. We do not have to trudge through trials. We will have hard times, there will be times of tears and sorrow, but through it, we can have comfort and life. We do not have to endure trials in our own strength. We are not helpless or without hope. God has given us great and precious promises. God will use trials and affliction for our good and our growth. When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, pour your heart out to God and reflect on the truth of His Word. 

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. — Romans 5:1-5 (ESV)