Learning to Hope in God…

On Wednesday nights Pastor Matt has started a series about having hope in God.  It has been a huge blessing and he is only in week 2.  He is using Psalm 42-43 as the scripture.  The first week was the introduction and a little bit of an explanation of what the series will be about.  Last night we jumped into the first 8 verses of chapter 42.  It was very convicting and encouraging.  He started off the message with a song entitled “Grace” sung by Laura Story, and then this quote,

“The author is grieving over the circumstances in his life while struggling to not hate the ones that have brought these circumstances into his life and all the while yearning for the presence of God to be felt even though he is absent from the sanctuary.”

Pastor Matt went on to talk about how the author fought for hope and how we can do the same thing.  The author of Psalm 42 was thirsting after God with passion, remembering his past worship experiences, believing in the faithfulness of God’s love and sovereignty, and was singing a song of anticipated hope, not a song of deliverance.

I was struck by some of the other things that Pastor Matt said. One of the most intense things was,  ”The deepest part of your soul can only be satisfied with the Lord.”  This really made me think about how many times we try to fill our lives with everything, but the Lord.

The final thought that was given was this quote,  ”When it is natural for us to run to God like an animal runs for water-we will be at peace with the circumstances God brings into our lives.” Pastor Matt had the author of the quote on the screen but I didn’t have a chance to write it down.  I want to have hope in God no matter what the outcome of the circumstances may be.  I want thirst for God and run to Him like the animal to the water. I want to believe in God’s faithfulness no matter what the situation. I want to sing a song of hope, not just a song of deliverance.