Our Help and Our Hope

I was reading another devotional on God being our help and our hope throughout the year. And with a new year coming up I thought it would be cool to share what I learned from this devotional.

Hope and Help. Those are two four letter words that we need to take with us into the new year. When we think of those words we can think back throughout the year when God has been our help and our hope. Whether we were going through a rough time or a great time. I know in my year there have been great times and some heartbreaking times.

There is a hymn that has the lines "Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come" As we think back in the "ages past" God has been our help and our hope throughout it all. "Long ago, even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes" (Ephesians 1:4) I like how it says "in his eyes" because others definitly see our faults but God never does.

Here are a whole pile of questions that John asked in this blog that I thought I would answer (without going to in depth after all this is a public blog)

What do you have now that you didn’t have a year ago?
A wonderful job.

Think in terms of personal growth, experiences, and people God has blessed you with. Wow there are so many things that GOd has blessed me with: a new job, wonderful friends! WOW

How do you know God better than you did at this time a year ago? I am digging deeper in the word now. I am more eager to read it. I am feeling like my relationship with him is getting stronger! I love Him!

What more do you know about Him? He takes away fears when you ask him to and HE IS A HEALER!!! :) and He puts trials in our lives to HELP us grow. Each problem has a purpose.

What more do you know about yourself that He has revealed to you? I do have trust issues. WHen troubles come I lose faith that God is actually there.

What struggle has He helped you overcome? Fears of many things. The grief of losing someone very dear to me. He is helping me overcome the fear of my grandpa dying.

Is there anyone in your life who wasn’t there a year ago that you can honestly thank God for? My college friends for sure. Especially Keith, hes a great person and Heidi and Lydia they are awesome people as well!

What has He helped you to accomplish? I am almost over my fear of speaking in public. I am still shy about that, but I am overcoming that fear. I read my testimony in front of the whole NW congregation and I read a verse one week of Advent.

How has He been faithful to you even when you have been faithless? When I was in the hospital a few times, I lost faith that he was there but he was there throughout the whole thing.

Then he asked questions about the coming year:

Now think about this next year and how God is our only true hope.
Think of specifically where you need to apply some of that hope.

What are you afraid of? I am afraid that something in my life will become more important than why i was put here on earth. Other minor fears are Big dogs, guns, spiders

Where are you feeling inadequate? When it comes to helping my friends.

What do you want to change, and how can God help you? I want to change the priorities in my life. I am currently not watching TV in my room so i will have the self control to read my bible more. but there are still many distractions (which at the end of a week of not watching TV in my room, I will explain in detail in a blog on its own)

For all of this, He is our hope. And for all that we will face this next year that we don’t know anything about right now, He is our hope. He will be enough.

"Our fears for today, our worries for tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away" (Romans 8:38).