God Sees You -- Hope Chronicles 79

For five years I met with a boy in the Residential Treatment Center here in town. We met once a week for 2-3 hours. He was fixated on gadgets. He wanted to put back together broken things even though he had no clue what he was doing. If it was electronic, he was convinced he could make it happen. Amazingly, he did manage a few things, but often he needed help of some kind. (Note: my help was worthless when it came to electronics.)

I introduced him to baking. At 8 he had never helped make cookies from scratch. The first time went well. The second time he insisted that he knew what he was doing while cracking the eggs. He didn't want me to remind him how. I let him try twice. Two smashed eggs later he reluctantly let me put my hands on his and gently tap the bowl and separate the shell. (Thankfully, I had the foresight to have him attempt to crack them in a bowl apart from the batter.)

Aren't we all a lot like him -- imagining we are wiser or stronger than we really are? Usually, it leads to a mess of some kind.

I was reading today and read Pslam 33. Here are verses 16-22 (NIV). The emphasis is mine.

No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all it's great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those
who fear him, on those whose HOPE
is in his unfailing love,
to deliver from death and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our sheild.
In him our hearts rejoice
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O' Lord
even as we put our hope in you.

So many times we try in vain. We are a delusional people in some sense. We have never out grown the two-year-old saying "ME DO IT!" to something that they cannot possibly do. While most of us don't put our hope in horses, we do put our hope in our abilities, our gifts, our position, our education, . . . . All of these things are vain hopes.

But we can have hope because "the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him." We can have hope because God sees us. He looks down from the heights of heaven and sees you. He looks down and sees me. Knowing this lets us rest in/hope in his unfailing love.

But it is a choice to rest because you know God sees you, because you know he is your shield and your help. It is sometimes an act of will to hope in the midst of the raw circumstances of life: injury, death, a flailing economy, loneliness, depression.

That act of will, that choice is something called trust. It's when you hand the "egg" to the Lord and let Him help you crack it. When you put your hope in His unfailing love, you can rest in the fact that His eyes never waver from you, you are never out of His mind or sight for even a millisecond.

Can you make the choice to trust that God sees YOU all the time, everywhere? Can you trust that He has your best interest at heart -- no matter what comes? That is what it means to hope. We cannot hope when we do not trust.

A Child's Faith, A Mother's Heart, and Daring to Hope -- Hope Chronicles 23

Several years ago Julie was driving back to visit her family with her children. The oldest was in the third grade. She pulled out a yellow legal pad and announced that they were going to make a list. This got Julie's attention. After all, it was spring and Christmas was many months away. Julie inquired as to what the list was for. Her daughter announced that it was a list of things they wanted in a husband for their mom. (Sorry, Oprah, this little one was way ahead of you on love lists!)

Her younger daughter started off with things like money and a nice car. With all the wisdom of a third grader, her older daughter said, "No, he first has to be a Christian." And then, after getting the younger girl more focused, they moved on from there.

Recently, Julie's girls (now both teenagers and the older one a year away from college) were cleaning out their memory boxes. Her oldest found the list that Julie had stowed there. "Mom," she said, "he has all these things." You see, Julie remarried a few years ago after dating her husband for five years! He was patient enough to wait around for her to be ready.

I got teary as Julie related the story. She rushed to say, "I didn't tell you that to make you cry!" I know she didn't but I didn't know if I dared to hope. Sometimes it feels easier not to hope than to have a hope and not see it fulfilled.

What are the things you hope for but can't see yet?

This week a friend looped me in on some communication she was having with another single woman. This is a portion of the email she sent:

"I want to encourage you that you can still be a mother in a non-traditional way. My friend, Amy, is 39 years old and never married. She, too, sometimes gets down about her desire to marry and have children. But I want you to know that she has so connected in my kids lives that she often mothers them. She takes them for fun outings. She watches them so my husband and I can have time. She has had some deep conversations with them when they've asked deep questions."

I was touched by my friend's words. "She has so connected in my kids lives that she often mothers them." In my separate conversation with Julie, I asked, "So why did God give me a mother's heart and empty arms?" Julie suggested that maybe it is just a "not yet" and that I needed to keep myself open. To think that it is a lost cause closes off my heart to possibilities. She wanted me to make a list.

I know some of you reading are not single. But I hope you can still relate. What is it that you so hope for that it scares you because what would happen if that dream didn't come true?

It is hard to hope and not see how that hope might be fulfilled. Sometimes people try to make you feel better and say, "God has a better plan for you." They mean well, but sometimes it can make it feel harder. I do know that God doesn't take that longing, that hope (whatever it is in your life) lightly. Scripture recognizes the weight of it. In Proverbs 13:12 (NIV) it says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

It's okay to have that longing -- whatever it might be for you. It's okay to sometimes feel down about it. But be careful. Don't make it into an idol. (An idol is anything that takes center stage instead of God.)

So, some of that is okay. BUT, God also calls us to turn our eyes to Him. I'll only quote part of Psalm 42 here (8-11), but I encourage you to look at the whole thing:

By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me—

a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,

"Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

Even when my dreams feel far away, I am called to put my hope in God -- to praise my God and Rock. So, I thought about all the kids I've "mothered" over the years: Elizabeth, Hannah, Jonathan, David, Billy, Theresa, . . . and I could come up with quite a list if I really looked back and took stock. In that perspective, my arms have been anything but empty!

Julie also reminded me of Sarah in the Bible who went to great lengths to have a child and really made things worse than if she had just waited on God. I'm like her in wanting to just make whatever happen. And Julie said, "Don't be like Sarah. Don't laugh at God." (Genesis 18:12-16).

So, I'm daring to hope. And though it feels risky, I started that list. Meanwhile, I will not waste the mother instincts God has given me.

What will you dare to hope for? What will you do while you are waiting and trusting and praising God for whatever may come?