11 Nov Finding and Fueling Hope
When I was a kid, my gift of leadership started showing itself in the setting of organized sports. The only bad part about this was that my gift wasn’t mature, which made my passion often look a whole lot more like anger.
I’ll never forget the day we had lost a Little League game, and I went on a rant at my team. After the game, my dad approached me about it. He said that good leaders don’t get angry at others; instead, they kindly make people aware of the things that they can do better to win.
I was able to listen to my Dad because I knew he loved me and wanted only the best for me. And that one lesson has significantly impacted my leadership style today, for the best.
This is exactly what our Heavenly Father wants to do for us. He doesn’t want us to get distracted or define ourselves by our mistakes; instead, He wants us to open ourselves up to His love and leadership.
There is one man in the Bible who especially knew how it felt to make mistakes— King David. The more mistakes He made the more he realized why he made them— he had grown weak in his soul.
It was in one of these weak moments that David penned one of the most infamous passages of Scripture—Psalm 23. Verses 1-3 say, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul…”
See, David realized that it’s the soul that God shepherds and restores when He wants to change our lives. It’s the soul that He matures, and He does this in two ways.
First, He helps us to find real hope in God. That’s what He did for David. When David was weak, He gave Him divine strength to hold onto. When He was confused, He gave him His wisdom telling him which way to go. And He’ll do the same for us!
God also fuels us so that we reach real hopes. He gives us unnatural strength, wisdom, and peace when we need it most. One of my favorite characteristics of our Good Shepherd is that He doesn’t waste time thinking about our past; He only thinks about our potential, and how to get us to reach it.
Friends, God wants to be your Shepherd. So I encourage you to trust Him today with your deepest hopes, dreams, struggles and stories. Trust Him on your brightest day and in your darkest hour. If we can entrust our soul to Him eternally, why wouldn’t we be able to trust Him along the journey of this life?
If your soul is weak, then let God love you and mature you. Find your hope in Jesus and let Him fuel you so that you can reach your best life. The Good Shepherd never disappoints!