I’m going to be shooting from the hip again for this post (honestly, that’s the best way for me otherwise there really wouldn’t be any new posts). So I’m going through this unexpected trial since I wrote about faith and the (lack of) works of it in my life. I had a feeling I was about to go through a trial in my relationship, but I didn’t think it would be as extreme as it is now. I’m not going go into the details, but in the most simplest summary I took a blessing from God and wasn’t the best steward of it. We ended up twisting the blessing and made it about us instead of making the blessing (thus us) about God. So we mutually (as difficult as it was) to take a step back and put God in the forefront in our lives. I don’t know how long it will take. It hurts just thinking about. But the truth is that we selfishly wanted our own desires for our lives instead of seeking and obeying to the desires God wants for our lives.
So just like the trial I went through last year when I explicitly disobeyed His commands, I am going through it all over again. In this I will trust God and I will go to Him in every thought of doubt in my mind. I know I will be spiritually attacked. I will be sad. I will feel pain. I will also find joy in the most unexpected places. I will find bits of happiness and excitement through this. And in all of those blips of emotions, I will go to Him about it all. That when I am feeling weak, I will go to Him and ask for His help. I will listen intently to His Word. I will surround myself with His love. I will love intently to those He has called to be around me. I want to understand and accept the life He wants for me.
I understand and consume all of those things. That whole thought process comes from my head and not such much from my heart. My heart wants to settle that what I have done with God’s blessing is lost. My heart wants to say that let’s just go on because this is something that cannot be restored (even though it is my mind that knows that God can restore anything). My heart is full of emotion and is full of hurt. It sends the signals to my mind and it is my mind that brings that emotion to God. But there’s a very root emotion my heart that my mind cannot compensate. And that is hope.
There is very little logic to hope. My mind cannot comprehend it. It knows it exists, but it cannot do anything with it. It cannot take any actions to bring hope into a tangible entity where it measure and adjust decisions accordingly. Unlike faith (and we’re talking about the works kind of faith that James writes about), my mind can act on faith. It sees the faith in Chris. (In other words, it sees the works of faith in Christ.) It imitates and acts out in love according to the faith we’re called to live. But hope remains a mystery to my mind. It’s something that only my heart can grapple with, and it can be so hard at a time like this where my heart doesn’t find hope.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. Just like how my mind consumes the Word to gain the wisdom called infuses into it, my heart can also call onto God to infuse itself with the hope it requires. This is what Paul writes to the Romans:
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with the confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
– Romans 15: 13 (NLT)
God is constant. God is love. God is good. And just like how my mind calls out to God for wisdom, my heart ought to call out to God for He is the source of the hope it needs.
I feel like I lack of a balance between heart and mind. My mind so deeply wants to say, “If it’s God’s will.” It tries to justify what’s happening in my life (as I go through trials and find myself in the valley). It’s like it puts out a kindling fire of hope that my heart so wants to turn into a blaze. My mind fights with my heart, “God is good, but the thing that we want isn’t the same thing He wants for us.” And I just have to straight out call out my mind that that line of thinking is not true!
God, my father, I look towards the heavens and ask you to fill me completely with joy and peace. I trust you, LORD. For You being the source of my hope, I ask your Holy Spirit to start a blazing fire of hope in my heart. That both my heart and mind are parts of a unifying body to be drawn closer to you. That they become a balance to symbolize your power with wisdom and love. Let me hold on to You. Let me hold on to hope! I pray this in your Son’s name, Jesus Christ, Amen!