Our Best Hope

How many times have you seen your plans fail? To have something you really, really wanted, and to see it slip through your fingers? We can never see the future, but so often we don't even have the ability to see two or three steps behind us. Think about it. That man you really wanted to marry...that job you just knew you were going to get, that promotion, move to a different place, opportunity...whatever. When we lose our dreams and plans, we tend to think of ourselves as victims of fate, or that God somehow doesn't care. Or maybe we believe God is punishing us, or that God isn't in control.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God holds us in the palm of His hand. For Christians...our life is hidden in Christ.

"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Col 3:3-4

Our lives are totally wrapped up in the righteousness, plans, and protection of Christ. What a cool thought! As the keeper of our lives, what Christ wants most is to bring glory to His Father. You can bet that what he has for us will be bring the most glory to His Father...so it's going to be the best for us, as well.

When we don't get what we want...if we surrender that pain of disappointment to God and just trust Him that he's completing a good work in us, then we will become like Christ through the thousand little deaths that life entails. All these bad things would seem like little deaths and dissappointments...but if we surrender them to God, he's actually killing off our selfish desires so that we will glorify the Father more. Sometimes, suffering means winning.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35-38

When it seems our hope is crushed, our dreams are dead and gone, and that we just can't get anywhere...just remember this: God has your life safely tucked away in Christ. God's plans for us are to glorify Him the way he sees fit, and that is beyond what we could imagine with our best hope.