Trusting to Hope

Mount of Blessing, Israel

From my series on trust, I find myself being led to the concept of hope. It has been a battle, though, as I try to reconcile that oft quoted verse in Romans 5:5 where it says that hope doesn’t disappoint.

I know the bible to be true and stand by its veracity, and its application to my life. That is the only thing standing in between me taking up a pair of scissors and redesigning that part of my precious scriptures. I’m sure tomes have been written on Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart-sick, but when longing is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.” But what happens when you seem to be stuck in the land of the deferment of hope?

As I pondered this, I sense the Lord pressing a bit on the issue. Laughing in the face of the Creator is not polite, but it was an instinctual reaction, and He’s still cleaning me up, in many ways. I realize that I can dodge the issue, which, to be honest, I have been for several months, but He has His own plans and purposes that rarely seem to match ours. So here I go, down this journey. And as I started to really focus, I realized that hope never seems to let its light flicker out. In another entry I wrote years ago, oddly enough, Trust to Hope, I commented about hope, “… the heart was fashioned to always hope – it always has to hope in something. And it has an amazing amnesia of what happened to hope the time before.”

Hmm. Hope – it is infinitely more than wishful thinking, but rather, a confident expectation. Hope remains, in some way, form, or fashion, always. 1 Corinthians 13:13: “Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Hope is one of the three that remain, a light that refuses to be put out. And so begins this next adventure

Trust and Obey

I’ve been humming that old hymn “Trust and Obey” lately. There are a bunch of verses, but the chorus is this:

Trust and obey,
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey.

Those two really do go together. Obedience is a manifestation of trust. How can we say that we trust Our Lord and disobey what He asks of us? If I say, “Yes, I trust Him,” then when He asks something that seems impossible to my eyes, I need to rest in that trust and take the leap. And that is my thought for the day. Shana Tov!

RedShoooz – He Wants It All
BYNA 40 Days – Day 30, Day 31

Pictures from Day 6: The Kinneret and Capernaum

And what happened to day 5, you may ask. Shabbat happened :-). It was glorious to slow down, rest, and fellowship. I do love that part of my week!

But we keep going, and we are at the mid-point of the tour. We left Jerusalem and headed to the Galilee region, or the Kinneret, as I explained in the Galilee post here. I have pictures of the explanation of an ancient boat that was dated more than 2,000 years ago, you can walk with me on that journey (right-click on the image and open in a new tab to see the full size – you’ll be able to read the story).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We got to sail on the Kinneret – that was special, as you will see. We started the journey with the Hatikvah, the Jewish national anthem. It means the hope, and it’s a very moving song, even if you don’t understand the words. Here you go.

Being on the water was incredible. Pictures can only barely touch the amazing experience.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I relayed in the post mentioned above that Hillsong United recorded the song Oceans there. The boat owner played it for us, and I was undone. I can’t upload my recording due to copyright restrictions, but here’s the Hillsong version again. The boat that you see is the boat that we were on.

After that was Capernaum and seeing the Galil valley from up high. What a wonderful close to our day, seeing the Kinneret from our hotel room!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

TTWWADI

There was a part of the sermon on Sunday at my church where the pastor was reminding us, from II Corinthians 5:7, that we live by faith and not by sight. We do need to move beyond the realm of reason and operate in faith. This is the point that hit hard for me: Just because things are the way they are does not mean that they are the way they should be. He said that in order to do what cannot be done, we need to see what cannot be seen. That’s an awesome word right there, because it speaks at settling for what’s around us, even though something amazing could be right outside of the box of “the way things are.”

One of the most interesting examples hit me between the eyes the next day. I was at a teaching conference, and the opening speaker began to ask why railroad tracks were a certain length apart. The people who designed the railroad modeled them after the axles of wagon wheels. So why were wagon wheels designed that length apart? They were patterned after the carriages in England. Why were those wheels design that way? Because, if they weren’t, the axles and wheels tended to break, because of the ruts that were already on the paths and roads. Where did those ruts come from? Way back in the Roman empire, the chariots were designed that way, and the heavy use of them made those ruts. So why were the chariots designed with wheels 8 and some odd feet across? Because that was the width of two horses… er, rear ends. So why do we have train tracks 8 and some odd feet across, with mountain passes and tunnels only a bit wider? Because of horses rears. The term the speaker coined was TTWWADI – that’s the way we’ve always done it.

Now realize that he was talking about methods in education, but man oh man, did I see the connection. Do we limit ourselves to the way things are because that’s the way we’ve always done it, and that’s all we know? I am so glad that people haven’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are today. But personally, what’s the status quo in your life, because you can’t imagine anything different? That’s a dangerous question, I know, because once you break out of TTWWADI, nothing will be the same. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?