Subscribe 
Are you or a loved one dealing with addictions? Please take this study to learn how to hold on to hope and still keep your sanity.
Join us for our Daily Devotional Chat today in our Women’s Chatroom at 10:30am EST.
He called from across the country today. “Is there work out your way?” he asked. He couldn’t hide the concern in his voice. He’s looking for hope.
The evening news brings vivid pictures of despair in people’s lives.
“Lord, where is the hope?” I silently asked.
Immediately a parade of faces flashed through my memory. Faces of people I knew personally who found God to be their anchor and strength in times of great distress and personal loss. These were people who put their trust in God in spite of seemingly insurmountable circumstances. People whose faith anchored them as I witnessed, first hand, the peace and comfort they received from God. I saw the calm that God gave when they were shaken to the core.
Did they brave the storms of life without tears or fear or moments of loosing it? No, for they are people just like you and I, and storms can be overwhelming. Yet their eyes always turned back to the God they knew. They choose to run to Him and not from Him in their pain. He was there. He is there. For every breaking heart and every hopeless situation He is still there … today…for you and me.
The words in Psalm 13 from The Bible echo our own at times, as David laments over the agony of his life. He cries out to God with anguished questions. “How long, O Lord, will you forget me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have sorrow in my heart?”
Having spent himself he then makes a decision. “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me.”
God is big enough for you to beat on His chest and cry out your questions. If you let Him, He will encompass you with His love and quiet your heart and bring rest to your body and soul. He will remind you of blessings you still have in spite of loss.
We choose. When the job is gone, the money won’t stretch to the end of the month or our health or relationships leave an uncertain future, God is still there.
Determine to trust Him. Ask Him for guidance and stability every step of your journey. He can navigate you through the maze with comfort and peace that prevails after the tears are spent.
Do you need His hand to steady you today? Do you need to beat on His chest and release your anxiety to Him? He can take the anger, the fear, the hopelessness and give you instead a peace that is beyond understanding… a peace that steadies you in spite of turbulent surroundings. Invite Him….
Father God in Heaven,
I am tired and spent from the cares of my life and the circumstances that are overwhelming me. Forgive me for going my own way and not acknowledging You in my life. Today I want to change that. Today I want to invite You to lead me and guide me. My own resources are simply not enough. I need Your strength and Your wisdom to help me know the next step. I want to trust in You. Increase my faith and help me walk daily with You. Comfort me, reassure me of Your love and take my life into Your hands. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Questions: Have you invited God to share the journey with you? What are you struggling with today? Describe a situation where you have seen God at work in difficult situations.
About the Author Gail Rodgers
Daily audio podcast: A second daily devotional, Blessed Assurance, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog
Talk to a Mentor
Need Prayer?
Join Chat
Life Lessons
1-800-247-3180 | 604-514-2135
At the beginning of 2008, through a seies of events, I asked God what He wanted me to learn. He replied lean on me. I spent the year focusing on leaning on Him at the beginning of every situation. On Nov.13, God called my beloved husband of 33 years home in an instant. My immediate response was to lean on Him. The journey since that night has been much easier because I had learned how to lean upon God and not my own understanding.
The thing that I am struggling with today is the battle with my looks. How distressing it is to feel so trapped in a body that I wish I could escapre out of. However, through this crippling disorder that I have been battling with, God has been good to me for we have been able to write a few books that will bless others once they are published. He has kept me alive even though I would rather Him call me home. Asked and prayed for HIM to take me but He keeps me alive here on earth with a mission to still complete for HIM. I just have to learn how to lean on Him more and more to see me through these trying days.
God be with us all through this journey here on earth and let each and everyone of us complete what you so destire to do through us.
Barbara
Kris what a Beautiful Testimony! I am so sorry for your loss but I pray that God will Continue to help you to lean on Him as it is only through His Continued Love and Support day by day that we can even make it through this life at all. Kris I will be praying for you, Hugs, Linda!!!
Thanks Gail, for this thot provoking message. I echo Linda Kris. I spent a year learning to do this 13 years ago during a difficult period. Loss of my mother and my job that moved me toward disability [so Barbara I can resonate w/you as well……just lately God has been encouraging me to ‘write’ as well. I may not end up published but I’ll give it a go because HE says so]. I use my God given gift of writing in OnLine Mentoring so this will be stepping out into the waters.
My husband is now unemployed so we too know of the phone call the devotional started out with. God is even now being faithful. He is finding some hours of work at the local funeral home and a couple have been moved by Father God to send us enuf $$ that it will bridge the gap while we wait for the Employment Insurance to begin. We are walking on those waters of trust He has had on walking on over the years. At first we were scared, as this is our human reaction; but He has been buidling our faith by reminding us of ALL the times He has taken care of us over the past 30+ years.
wow. I read the comments and smile a little…life’s journey isn’t always fun, yet through your comments you testify that God is ever present. That’s radical.
Our family has recently lost a loved one — lost him to heaven — and as we get together in the next few days to support one another, I pray that we will feel God’s presence with us.
[…] Finding Hope […]
gail, thank you for the devotional today.
God heard my lament and the Holy Spirit touched me. He saw that i was at the end of the torment I was in. I had had enough and knew that it was only a matter of time before pit of despair devoured me completely. with the Holy Spirit’s touch, it was exciting, I was beside myself with this positive direction. Then for about a year and a half I felt I was so totally dis-combobbled in my spiritual growth. confusion set in, slight fear, trying to understand(at the time) what I couldn’t, only He can understand. Now, almost 2 years later His mercy and grace have turned my life totally around. Just recently I experienced a revelation while reading Scripture one morning. as I was reading Psalm 23 for just one particular passage, i decided to start at the beginning. as I read, ”The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He restores my soul.” it was here that for the first time in my life I understand, no, feel within this prayer. I started to get welled up, my voice was loud and quivering and i continued the whole Psalm and I can’t begin to explain any further this experience. i have heard His soft whisper. There isn’t any one ‘situation’ that stands out really. God is at work with me right now. after all, I was a ‘difficult situation’ all by itself. I’m experiencing that in prayer there is no prayer too small.
thank you for this wonderful devotional
[…] (3) Finding Hope […]
thank you for the good article good one
thank you we can find hope in God through this world that is going I think downhill most news on the TV is sad.