Hope: The Greatest Blessing 
by Debra Sheets

“Lord, show me how I've been blessed by You.” I looked around my house and surveyed some major repairs that had been waiting patiently for years to be done. My car note is due, and my funds are depleted again. It's Friday night. I’m sitting home alone with no immediate prospects or pursuers knocking on my door, posting on my Facebook wall, or texting my phone. My job is mediocre to say the least, and the future financially is looking pretty bleak. I'm just being real.

Many times, in taking inventory of the blessings of God in our lives, we look at the external: what we see, what we feel, what we have. We fall into the devil's age-old Garden tactic which shifts our focus on things we don't have while blinding us to all that we do have. From the very beginning until now, Satan has used this very same strategy to depress, deplete, and frustrate many.

In spite of it all, I can truly declare “I am BLESSED!” My greatest blessing from God is HOPE. It sounds so simple, almost child-like, but nevertheless true.

Proverbs 13: 12 says “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh it is a tree of life.” Early in my relationship with God, He set a pattern in motion, a pattern of deferment and deliverance. I've been perpetually brought to a place of need, want, and waiting, only to see God come through over and over again! HE is where my HOPE lies. I AM BLESSED!

Psalms 119:49-50 states, “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou has caused me to HOPE. This is my comfort in my affliction; for Thy word hath quickened me.” The word quickened in Hebrew means to revive, to keep alive, nourish, to repair. Because He has never let me down, and He is where HOPE is, I don't have to suffer long with feelings of anxiety, worry, fear, or torment. His Word has been a constant source of HOPE for me. If God says it, He will do it, for “God is not man that he should lie.”

Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of things not seen.” There is an excitement that rises up within me when I think about the promises of God that have not yet come to fruition. I've come to realize delay does not mean denied. His HOPE in me replaced my “if's” with “when's,” and I have found myself making plans for the day God brings those promises to pass. It's like cleaning up all the wrapping paper on Christmas morning only to find one more gift hiding under the mess with your name on it! Living life in the realm of FAITH and HOPE in God is a blessed life!

In the messiness of life, whether it is in job and family situations, economical uncertainties and hardships, or life as a single mother, our HOPE in God tells us we are BLESSED.

Reprinted with permission from Heart2Heart Newsletter published by New Life Center, Bridgeton, Missouri. Subscribe to this newsletter by contacting heart2heartnewsletter@hotmail.com.

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