Joyce Blum, Director of Student Learning & Professional Development
February 24, 2022
These past two years have caused many people to feel hopelessness like they’ve never experienced it before. How about you? Have you had those hopeless moments? How do you regain hope? This month we are looking at the hope that only a thriving relationship with Christ can bring us—UNSHAKEABLE HOPE!
It is easy to allow our circumstances to dictate whether we will experience hope or hopelessness. During the pandemic, many of us have been influenced by the circumstances of lockdowns, masking restrictions, mandated vaccinations, illness, job loss, and even death—and have found ourselves feeling hopeless. If we allow our hope to be reliant on what we are experiencing, we are guaranteed to be let down and to spiral into hopelessness.
Throughout the month of March, our students will be getting to know people like Deborah (in Judges 4:14-15) and the bleeding woman that Jesus healed (in Mark 5:24-34), who both showed incredible hope in very difficult circumstances. Our students will also read about historical figures like Jeanette Li, Chinese evangelist to Manchuria, whose life was changed after she heard the gospel story while lying sick in a hospital bed. Finally, our students will be challenged to see that when we share this hope with others and not just keep it for ourselves, the lives of others can be changed and transformed as in the case of those with whom the Samaritan woman shared her story (in John 4:39).
So how do you have that unshakeable hope when things seem hopeless? Don’t look at your circumstances and allow them to be the determining factor of your hope. Look to Jesus and run the race He has laid out for us. Focus on the eternal, not the temporary. Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV) states it so clearly:
Let us throw off everything that hinders.… And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Unshakeable hope is available for every believer. It is promised to those who look past their circumstances and keep focused on the eternal hope we have in Jesus. It is a daily choice—so choose hope!