There has been an unprecedented attack against the Bride of Christ, believers and those who stand for truth this past month. Satan has directed his principalities, and those ‘self’ filled minions who do his bidding, to destroy the hope of those who want justice, truth and light to prevail. This has dragged many into despair and discouragement. Our Father has been using this time to teach us how to battle for hope and thwart the plans of satan.
Losing hope
April 3, 2012 was a warm spring day in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. The day before we had left the home we were staying in because our host had become verbally violent and aggressive. Since the welcome was gone, we left. That night we slept huddled beneath the iron stairs behind The Lord Beaverbrook Hotel. The warmth of the dryer exhaust was the only way to keep the night chill away. As the sun rose, we knew we needed to find another place to stay. We did not possess the gear to spend another night outside in the cold.
In this milieu of homelessness, I left my family at the soup kitchen and went for a walk to a nearby park. There, behind a small building, I sat and sobbed. The tears flowed freely as hopelessness gripped my heart and burst forth. All the agony of the past 6 months of hunger and homelessness broke, and I could not contain the pain. I was sure we could not continue and was ready to throw in the towel on following God in faith.
When I returned, it surprised me to find that my eldest daughter had somehow arranged for us to stay at the Fort Nashwaak Motel for a month. In a single moment, my hopelessness was replaced with gratitude for God’s surprising provision.
The nature of hope
Lack of hope can destroy a person faster than any hardship.
Prisoners of war in the horrid conditions of Japanese prisoner of war camps testified they could endure a great deal of suffering as long as they held on to the hope they would someday be released. If they lost that hope they would die quickly. We endured a great deal of physical deprivation on our journey of faith but only because of the hope that God would deliver us one day. Satan was unrelenting in his assault. If we lost the battle for hope, as I did on April 3, great amounts of discouragement would fill the void, threatening to overwhelm our little troop.
How to battle for hope
We have to learn how to battle for hope.
The main difficulty we have with hope is twofold. First, hope lives in the heart and is problematic to grasp with our minds. This prevents us from understanding how to defend ourselves against attack. The second problem we encounter with hope is passive immaturity. As spiritual children our leaders did not teach us that hope is something we actively need to engage and fight for.
Hope is like a nuclear power plant in a believer’s life.
Properly functioning, hope can power us through the most daunting of trials. If the enemy shuts down the engine of hope, then we can be destroyed with little effort. Even if we possess the physical capacity to succeed we will fail without hope. This is how critical hope is to our walk of faith. We can gain faith to move mountains but without hope our faith will be of little value.
Principles in the battle for hope
There are some basic principles we learned about the battle for hope we wish to share.
- We cannot take our hope for granted. Remember satan longs to steal our hope so we need to be active in defending against his attacks.
- Placing our hope in the created is prone to failure. Mankind is a broken stick. Our hope needs to rest on the Uncreated God and never in ‘self’.
- Just as God tests our faith so to He will test our hope. By this testing we move from placing our hope in man to placing our hope fully on God. This testing builds and strengthens hope.
- As we endure long in the faith, we must endure long in hope. Hope and patient endurance are inseparable. When we set our hope on Jesus alone, we can endure any trial knowing He is the reward. Time should never be a limit to our hope.
Hope calling
Today we had a call with our beloved sister in South Africa. Since we have no other contact with the outside world except for these infrequent calls, we look forward to them. On this call however we had several technical issues that prevented us from talking. After a long delay Wanda thought we had best leave the call but I was determined not to lose hope. I encouraged us to wait, hoping God would restore the connection. When our friend was finally able to reconnect we had a lovely conversation.
This event illustrated how easily satan can attack, how we must stay in faith and battle for hope. As we endure in hope God will bless our pressing in. By placing our hope in our Beloved we know that the result will always be a blessing to us.
Our hope is not in an outcome, expectation or want but rooted in our living Savior.
Winning the battle for hope
If you find yourself in a place today where satan is attacking we urge you to battle for hope. Reject hopeless, despairing and discouraging thoughts by bringing them to Jesus, laying them at His feet. Actively choose to reinforce your hope in God and pray for His help. “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23. May your hope in the Uncreated continue to flourish.
Blessings,
Homer and Wanda
Good morning Homer, I couldn’t agree with you more, all believers shall know this as you state, hope is rooted in Jesus. It is a battle, but our God towers over the battle. Hallelujah! Do you and Wanda have a permanent residence now?
Hello Julie! Yes our God is a strong tower. We are so thankful for that for this past month has been a bruising battle. 🙂 So glad we can run to Him and find refuge and hope within!
Our family still resides in our little motel room. It was touch and go there for a bit as we had a significant dip in our supply and almost came to being homeless again. At the last minute God resupplied us so we are stable again. There are many words, visions and signs that God will be moving us soon but we have yet to see anything appear in the natural. I believe we are close though. We continue to wait in hopeful expectation of His deliverance! 🙂
Blessings to you our dear sister! May Jesus fill you with hope today!
Praying God moves you soon, Homer!
Thank you so much Julie. Bless you dear sister!
Homer you and your wife are an inspiration to me. What we complain about seems small to what we could be complaining about. I pray in the MIGHTY NAME OF OUR LORD YESHUA, JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH that you and your wife’s living situation will be changed permanently and all glory will be to GOD for it. You are so to right about the attacks of Satan too. Thankfully GOD won’t ever put more on us than we can handle. I am thankful that JESUS is always with us through EVERY single part of our lives. I am going to for sure add you and your wife to my REGULAR prayer requests too for you and your family a permanent home. May GOD continue to to bless you. You have definitely encouraged me. You are filled with godly wisdom
You are very kind Shellie, thank you from Wanda and myself, Ida and Fanny. We appreciate the encouragement, love and prayers. One of the great joys we have is to see God bless others through what we have experienced. This helps us see the value and worth of our sacrifice and blesses us immensely. Thank you.
Blessings to you our dear sister and your family! May God add to His blessing over you!
This post caused me to stop and pray, giving God glory and thanks for His building my own hope throughout my struggles, past and very recent present. We (you and I) are birds of a feather in a way, having experienced some of the same trials (mine less extreme than yours, though similar). I don’t think I ever realized the attack on hope. I only recently figured out what hope was, but it’s true – the attack is constant and sometimes so subtle we don’t see it. That’s why being in the Word and in prayer in His Presence continually is so imperative. We can’t fight without His Weapon. Thank you for this post! Blessings, Jenny
You are very welcome Jenny. The attack on hope is something our family is really fully understanding now as well. We have experienced it many times but only recently has God paired it with understanding which we are immensely grateful for. I am so glad we are not alone in this struggle. If we can help each other together it weakens the enemy’s ability to throw us off course. In this way we are glad to share our battles to help our fellow brothers and sisters.
As you press in to Jesus Jenny may He add to your blessings and expose satan’s tricks to try and make you stumble. We stand with you in this. Blessings to you dear sister.
Aren’t you glad you didn’t throw in the towel when you were tempted to do so? Look at all God is teaching you about hope so you can share with others! I’m still not receiving your posts in my newsfeed. I ”unfollowed” and again ”followed” I’m hoping that might fix it.
So very glad Deborah Marie. Though the trials have been brutal we are so thankful we are seeing the reward on the other side. One side benefit we never saw coming was how God would work through our pain to bless others. That has been an unexpected and beautiful blessing to us. I have to admit that I am overwhelmed at times of His immense goodness to take all of these elements to bless His whole family. Brings tears to my old eyes.
I sure hope the following things work out. I know I had to do that with a couple of blogs I followed as well. Seems to me an issue with WordPress.com. I have had another person mention this to me awhile back and the unfollow, follow thing worked. We will pray God will work out the technical issues for you. May you be bathed in His love today dear sister!
As it also says the in Proverbs, Hope deferred makes the heart sick. There is a true battle to remain hopeful. So many bad things are happening and so many are turning from Jesus. But He is our hope and knowing I can trust Him strengthens me each day.
Absolutely! Blessings to you dear sister!