After a miscarriage and multiple treatments for infertility, the chances of my having a baby were about five percent. It looked pretty hopeless. Despair and discouragement hounded my thoughts.
Every day we are assaulted with words, events or statistics that hijack our hope: catastrophic reports of news at home and around the world, a friend’s well-meaning comment that wounds instead of encourages, a doctor’s prognosis that paints a bleak picture of our future health, or a job evaluation that makes us wonder if they really know how hard we’ve worked.
Most of us hear at least 30,000 words a day. How many are positive and uplifting? How many engender fear, worry or anxiety?
Imagine the despair of the synagogue ruler who came to Jesus, desperate to find a cure for his dying daughter. He fell to his knees pleading for Jesus to come and lay hands on her. Jesus was his only hope, a hope that was shattered when men from his home arrived and announced, “Your daughter is dead.”
Dead? If only I had come sooner, he must have thought. If only that woman with the issue of blood had not interrupted Jesus. Maybe my daughter would still be alive!
“Overhearing but ignoring what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, ‘Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear; only keep on believing’” (Mark 5:36 AMP).
Jesus ignored their hopeless words, pursued death with a vengeance and restored the child’s life.
When we are faced with overwhelming odds, He urges us not to fear, but to keep on believing.
Sarah laughed in disbelief when she overheard the Lord say to her husband, Abraham, that she would bear him a son at the age of 90. Seeing through the eyes of man gave her a very limited perspective. But Isaac was born in God’s perfect timing.
Have you heard anything recently that hijacked your hope? Are you facing a situation right now that seems hopeless?
Why not ask the Lord for His truth about your circumstances?
A simple prayer like this:
“Lord, show me Your truth about ______,” could breathe life and peace into what seems hopeless right now. Ask God to help you see your situation through His eyes. Then sit and listen expectantly. Replace what you have heard from man with what the Lord tells you. Declare His truth over your life and watch the impossible become possible.
This is how I dealt with my infertility. Every time I saw a pregnant woman I declared: “All things are possible with You, God.” It was a struggle to stay in faith. I had to fight my discouragement with the Word of God, but four years later I gave birth to a son.
“You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You” (Isaiah 26:3 AMP).
I would love to hear how you have dealt with impossible situations in your life.