When the story of your life is not adding up, the wheels are falling off, and your now does not match your vision – how do you get your now to line up with your destiny? They say to have a little hope when the storm is pouring cats and dogs on your life and pounding you with its brutal force… but what is hope? How can you contain hope when every day is like yesterday and yesterday is the nightmare that won’t stop stalking you? Hope is said to be an expectation or desire that events will turn out for the best, but how can you hold on when you’ve been doing so, and the only thing you seem to be left holding on to is the darkness? When darkness came over the land, He cried, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken?”…
This is the Man who had hope in the garden and even said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” Never once did He cry “God why hast thou forgiven.” In the garden, when the darkness crept in, He held on more tightly to the light and prayed even more earnestly that His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). The first hour on the cross, He smiled. He could see the purpose and end result. The second hour, He meditated. He needed to focus on the end result. The third hour, He prayed. He needed to readjust His grip.
The fourth hour, He encouraged Himself. He reminded Himself of the promises and the destiny that He saw before the first hour. The fifth, He wiggled a little…But at the very last hour, the sixth hour, He couldn’t hold on anymore and cried the cry! If Jesus couldn’t see past the fifth hour when He was in flesh, how can we possibly see past the fifth hour? How can we be expected to see beyond mountain before us? We can’t. And that’s why Jesus had to die the way He did.
Day one, it was dark and He died. Day two, there was no hope. But on day three, He rose and brought with Him the keys to death and took the power from Satan. When He rose, He became the hope that never fails. Hope is Jesus. He was forsaken so that we would never feel forsaken if we call on Jesus. Hope is Jesus, knowing that the same Spirit power of God that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to our mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within us.
For even when Jesus was in the flesh, God gave Him angels to minister to Him and He felt better. And when He died, God personally saw to it that we would have a hope in Him, who would rise to be unshakable. Hope is Jesus, that your situation may be dead today with no hope that it will revive tomorrow, but the third is coming…So knowing what we know about the One who died on the cross for us, we don’t have to go through the first two days as though we don’t know how the movie will end.
Hope is Jesus, who went before us into the darkness in order to reverse our ending so that it would favour us. Jesus has already played out the final ending of your story. You’re just on day one; day three is coming.
©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.
