And therefore I have hope.

My devotion this morning was on waiting on the Lord. I couldn’t help but picture my Spring flowers fighting through the snow still left from this weekend’s storm.

They’re a picture of hope – deep, vibrant, happy color surrounded by cold, drowning, muddy snow. They are the beauty at the center of the ugly mess. Sometimes the deep purple buds are completely buried, but I know that beneath the frozen, they are there.  If I’m not careful, I can easily find myself getting discouraged by all the hurt, waste, and mess in the world. It seems like such a dark, hopeless place if I lose my perspective. That’s why my “word” for this year is hope. Hope is a daily act of channeling my focus on the beautiful, the wonderful, the admirable, the lovely, the excellent, and the true. It’s there. Sometimes it’s covered so deep with the ugly and the temporarily, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s there – whether I can see it or not, it’s there.

Lamentations 3:19-26

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
²⁰ My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
²¹ But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

Isaiah 40:28-31

²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Romans 8:24-25

“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

I will wait in hope, all the while seeking out the lovely, admirable, and praiseworthy. :)