40 Days of Hope by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012020/REL006110/REL062000
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2021-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

For further study and encouragement

Daniel 9:4–19

Day 20

Living in this present broken world is designed by God to produce longing, readiness, and hope in me.

It’s not natural for us to think about our lives in this way, but the difficulties we all face in this broken world are not in the way of God’s plan. No, they are part of it. The fallen world that is your address is not your address because he didn’t think through his redemptive plan very well. You are living where you’re living and facing what you’re facing because that’s exactly how God wanted it to be. The hardships that we all face between the “already” and the “not yet” are not a sign of the failure of God’s redeeming work, but rather a very important tool of it.

What we are all going through right here, right now is a massive, progressive process of values clarification and heart protection. God is daily employing the brokenness of this present world to clarify your values. Why do you need this? You need it because you struggle in this life to remember what is truly important, that is, what God says is important. You and I place much more importance on things than they truly possess, and when we do so, these things begin to claim our heart allegiance. So God ordains for us to experience that physical things get old and break. The people in our lives fail us. Relationships sour and become painful. Our physical bodies weaken. Flowers die and food spoils. All of this is meant to teach us that these things are beautiful and enjoyable, but they cannot give us what we all long for—life.

In this world that is groaning, God is protecting our hearts. He is protecting us from us. Our hearts can be so fickle. We can worship God one day, only to turn and give the worship of our hearts to something else the next. So, in love, God lets pieces of the creation die in our hands so that increasingly we are freed from asking earth to give us what only he can give. He works through loss to protect us from giving our allegiance to things that will never, ever deliver what our hearts seek. This is all designed to deepen our love and worship of him. It is all crafted to propel the joy that we have in him. And in so doing, he is preparing us for that moment when we will be freed from this present travail and give all of our being to the worship of him forever and ever.

Your Lord knows that even though you are his child, your heart is still prone to wander, so in tender, patient grace he keeps you in a world that teaches you that he alone is worthy of the deepest, most worshipful allegiance of your heart.

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