Hope IS a Strategy
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Hey friends!
I just wanted to hop on today because God has really been placing something in my heart over the last week about Hope. I have heard so many times the words “hope is not a strategy”, and I just want to tell you that in 2020, hope is very much a strategy! This year we've been through so much with illness, job loss, racism, marriage struggles, and just all the things that have been happening this year. What we really need is Hope because what we could really feel this year is hopeless.
You know, we went into 2020 with this idea of 2020 vision. I know I did! I had a pretty clear vision of what I hoped that 2020 was going to be. Unfortunately, mine was surrounded with doing live events, so that's not happening. We've all had to take a minute and mourn the loss of what we thought this year was going to be and what our hopes and plans were. Now we need to get our hopes up again. That is what I want to tell you. I want to encourage you to get your hopes up because God is still on the throne and he still has a good plan. Even when things don't look the way we thought, this was no surprise to Him. He may not have caused it, maybe He did, I don't know, but He's definitely using it.
One thing I've been saying all year is that I am trying to make sure I'm focused in the spiritual and on what God is doing. There are good stories out there! God is moving and doing things and he is exposing things. We have all been stripped back, all the busyness, all of the distractions are gone and He's bringing things to surface. In marriages, without all of the distraction, we are forced to have hard the conversations. When we will do that, when we will lean into that, we can become stronger together. And when we're not willing to do that, we can be torn apart. So I just wanted to come on and encourage you to get your hopes up and to look for what God is doing.
Romans 15:13 says, May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy spirit. That's it friends, God is where we're going to get our joy and where we're going to find our peace. We need to be seeking him.
Before I became a coach, before I started school, I had a job that laid me off. I was devastated, I had never been laid off before. I know a lot of you are going through that this year with job loss. I spent about four days full of emotions. The first day I spent just being sad, upset, and mad, and then I just spent the whole weekend time with God. I was listening to sermons. I was reading scripture. I was seeking wise counsel. Then I realized that sometimes God will have to pull the rug out from under you to get you where he wants you to go. We have all kind of had the rug pulled out from under us this year and maybe it's time to look at things in a new way.
You know that job, the one that you may not have even liked and now you're waiting to go back to, maybe you are being called to something new. I was talking to someone a few days ago and she was telling me that it looks like she's going to end up being let go. Then she shared with me that what she really loves to do is go to estate sales and then resell the items she finds. She has actually started a side business doing this.
That is the kind of stories that gets me excited. When you think, maybe there's some gift, talent and ability that God placed in me that now is the time to dust that off too. To shift, pivot and to think, how can I use these talents?
Maybe you have the ability to be a tutor because that's going to be huge as parents are going to need help. Just lean into God and see what he has to say.
Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you, therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. and each day has enough trouble of its own.
That is for sure, that each day that is had enough trouble of its own but seek first his kingdom. When we spend time with Him, pray, not just pray, but listen. See if He's giving you some redirection, or maybe a new direction. Is God placing a new dream in your heart that maybe you hadn't thought of before, or that wasn't even a thing before this happened.
I just want to encourage you to get your hopes up! To dream again or dream for the first time. Dream big audacious God given dreams!
This next season can be one of the best if we just drown out those voices of the world, sometimes the loudest voice is not necessarily speaking the truth. It's sometimes the quiet whisper of Holy spirit. It's actually always the Holy spirit that is the one speaking the truth.
I just want to encourage you to go to God and to dream again. Most of all, believe that hope is a strategy and get your hopes up!