Tag Archives: Psalm

May 7, 2011 · 11:12 pm

Hope as the Pathway and Agency for Success in Any Venture


Hope is What We Express About Life That is a Bridge To The Future

The ability to express hope through challenging circumstances is an essential element to create success in the ventures of life.  Expressing hope is the act of building a bridge that over circumstances–opposition paving a way to desirable outcome in the future.  Almost everyone is concerned about effectiveness– how to find success in life that creates the momentum to get where we want to arrive. many available studies support the assumption that hope is a key component that distinguishes how well an individual navigates through challenges. Therefore, the influence of hope upon life can be measured in qualitative terms that relate to physical health, higher academic functioning, interpersonal functioning, athletic performance, psychosocial adjustment, capacity for self-regulation, and superior ability to face and overcome obstacles.  On the other hand a lack of hope can be connected to individuals being easily confused by obstacles, avoidant, ineffectiveness and the absence of  heartiness through life challenges. When factors are considered about why some people succeed and why others do not, there may be many factors contributing to success, but the single mitigating factor that empowers success– even when other deficiencies exist– is the presence of hope.

An effort to define hope might provide some insight about what it is, what it does, and how it is expressed. Some common definitions of hope are to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment, or to have confidence; trust, to look forward to with confidence or expectation. In life, we hope that our children will be successful, the sun will shine, and that everything will always work out. The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God‘s help.  The idea of hope in general terms is an expectation that motivates life in the present with a belief that the future hold possibility that can be achieved.   Hope is a way of expressing life that builds a bridge to the future.

In the Christian approach to hope a Biblical definition of hope is “confident expectation.”  Hope is a firm assurance regarding things that are unclear and unknown (Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 11:1,7).  Christians believe that hope in the present and in the future is a confident expectation that is based in essential beliefs about God and His oversight, involvement, and control over what happens in life.  For Christians, who understand the basis of their beliefs,  hope is an essential ingredient in the life expressed upward toward God and outward toward goals (Proverbs 23:18) . In times of distress, when faced with despair and loss, there are situations where life loses its essential meaning  and zest (Lamentations 3:18, Job 7:6). When faced with death and times when  there is no apparent hope (Isaiah 38:18, Job 17:15), Christian hope supplies a way of organizing belief into confident expectation that those who put their hope in God will receive assistance(Psalm 28:7).  Therefore, Christians believe, and will not be perplexed, put to shame in their hope (Isaiah 49:23), and will be vindicated as they place hopeful expectation in God.  As a result,  hope and belief is a general attitude of confidence in God’s protection– help (Jeremiah 29:11).  Therefore, hope frees Christians from fear and anxiety (Psalm 46:2-3).  Christian hope is based upon beliefs and assumptions about, God, good and evil, life, eternity and life in the present.  Hope provides momentum to live with expectation that God is guiding what is happening to a positive outcome.

One issue of interest is how hope energizes and infuses life with momentum to move ahead. Hope provides a clear way that can reduce the power of obstacles to disable supplying an attitude that enables reaching forward with a belief that success is attainable.  As a result, attention is drawn to how hope can be increased in how an individual approaches life.  Is there a road to happiness and a set point that can be achieved that happiness can be measured, believed to be normative as a maxim?  An equally important issue to understand is that a state of happiness is a subjective condition.  If someone asked you to describe happiness what would the story contain for you?

Research has shown that automatic assumptions of happiness are often incorrect.  Often hope and happiness are associated with feeling good about what is occurring.  In fact, what is true is that people who feel good in certain circumstances, like winning the lottery, actually become unhappy, dissatisfied and loose hope in life.  Carl Maslow illustrated that people feel a better sense of well-being when they have basic survival needs met rather than monetary gain.  Lifestyle always rises to the level of income and beyond and what happens is that possessions or positions in life do not seem to bring happiness and hope.  People get on the hedonistic treadmill trying to find happiness and gain hope but, “the abundance of life is not in the things we possess” (Jesus).  Often people assume that happiness and having hope is a result of what happens to people in life.  However, it is not what happens to people; it’s how they construct and interpret those events, it is how you mindfully experience those events.

A key to hope, a road to happiness is emotional well-being.  People who have hope in life and experience emotional well being are people who are virtually engaged in life– grounded in meaning and purpose in life.  To be happy, to have hope means being fully involved with every detail of life.  A life driven by purpose, calling, a sense of belonging and fitting where you are is critical to feeling positive about what is taking place in existence.  When people are fully engaged in life with a sense of fitting, belonging– owning a place in life– engaging in positive relationships, then attention redirects our energy away from negatives which are destructive, limiting, defeating activity that drain vitality from life.  You may have heard the expression, “time flies when you are having fun.”  Another way to understand this is a state of grace, a “flow state.”  The experience of flow happens when you are able to be completely caught up in what you are doing and time flies.

Meeting the challenges of life with hope increases the flow of life that sets an expectation that sees a life that has possibilities, even when faced with extreme opposition.  What occurs in the hope transaction is that alternative routes to reach outcome are discovered, then implemented through pathways thinking.  “Pathways thinking” means that when the first route you try is blocked, you can produce alternative routes to get to a destination by thinking flexibly and are able to change course as needed. A challenge faced when attempting to cultivate an increased hope is to how to cultivate thinking patterns that connect to alternatives rather than boxed in solutions. A principle  of hope is that hope is a learned experience as well as a motivational feeling experienced, which indicates that hope both a phenomenon and a mindset.

Hope is embraced as a principle in thinking when hope has agency.  “Agency thinking”  is thinking with efficacious belief, a sense,  that the desired goal can be reached.  Borrowing from a Biblical principle in Hebrews 11:1; “faith” in Christian thinking is stirred by reciting, vividly recalling successful ventures of faith in the past.  The “evidence of things hoped for”  is in the record of those who have the story of success presented in a history of belief.  Individuals who spend their time reciting their failures or being reminded constantly of failure are not likely to accomplish much.  However, when there is a sense of agency and belief is cultivated through celebrating success and failure jointly (on the road to success), then high hope can be instilled that enables accomplishment.

One thing that is for sure in life is that there are always people who can convincingly tell you why you cannot succeed. However when you want to succeed, a bridge to the future must be constructed with faith, hope, and belief and it needs to begin today, without delay.

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April 19, 2011 · 8:05 pm

Spirituality: Striving and Developing on the Path


Img00360-20110417-1446

When Jesus said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24), I am reminded of the discipline that is involved in continuing to walk day after day in a committed life.  It is a formidable challenge not to allow the shadows and underbrush overshadowing the walk to hinder  progressing toward the goal that is just ahead on the road called strait.

The grim reality present in what Jesus said,  “Strive”, indicates a life of resistance against the elements that are always present, which constantly oppose success toward a direction called the “strait gate”.  The truth is that, unless there is a tenacious commitment to embrace the calling of the “strait” direction with total dependence on God, it is not likely that striving alone will keep you on the path. What is apparent is that there is a struggle to live in a “strait” way, but what is the struggle with?”

Is it the struggle with the road of life chosen or a struggle with the way the road leads life?

A calming reminder from the psalmist says, “the ways of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord” (Psalms 37). Comfort and assurance are given to us  living on the path of righteousness that it is a ordered way – God is involved in every step taken.  The confidence which is given is that there is not a step taken, or resistance, that will be present, that He has not already prepared for.  On the path, a discovery comes that there is a way that seems right, which may feel right, looks right –the path of least resistance.  At this place of understanding, a decision has to be made to have trust during the struggle or to give way to the temptation to the impulse to run away from the “set path”, the ordered way, which is “strait” and characterized by “striving”.

A challenging concept in the statement comes as Jesus says, “Strive to enter” A question that arises is what exactly are we striving with, while entering the “strait gate?”  Many people see this as a struggle in becoming a Christian, or the struggle in surrendering to Christ. However, what must be noted is that striving is a continual struggle on the “ordered path”.  If it is believed that God gives salvation freely, it is hard to accept that this is struggling for salvation.  It seems that the struggle is pointing to an important understanding about what we struggle with the most in life,  surrender of control to live under control to God alone.  Our striving is not with God, salvation, or receiving grace – it is a struggle with a thing called depravity that haunts the soul of man with unbelief, selfishness, and a propensity toward a disobedient and unfruitful lifestyle.  It is a struggle with self.

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August 14, 2010 · 7:39 pm

God, If You Really Know Everything, I Need Some Advice


Advice

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“If I could have known in the past what I know today, I probably would have made some different decisions.” It seems that these words are reminiscent of what Solomon wrote while discussing the futility of what has happened in life. We may think that if we knew the future that we would alter or maybe change what would be done. However, a perplexing fact about the omniscience of God is that He already knows the future but doesn’t try to change it, because He has already provided for everything that will ever come up in our lives. Yes, God knows all about us, past, present, future, even before we were born.

This truth is presented in Psalm 139:16 where a description is given of what God knows about us, “The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book before any of them ever began.” When God looks at our existence, it is with a complete understanding of every moment, success, failure, and event that occurs. Unfortunately, many who look at their life or the life of others see failure, problems, defeat. However, when God looks at our life, even though it may not have been perfect, we face challenges, or insurmountable problems the narrative of scripture indicates that when God looks at our lives that he has hope for a future. In Jeremiah 29:11, even though God’s people have failed miserably, the message that God gives is that it isn’t the end—there is hope for a bright future: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you hope and a future.” He has a plan for what is going to happen, really– He knows your future.

Everybody is interested in the future and trying to predict what will happen and develop logistical plans. It’s interesting to me the things people will try to know what the future holds: astrology, horoscopes, reading tea leaves, consulting with people, bio-rhythms. People try all kinds of things trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. They are going to the wrong source. There is somebody who knows what’s going to happen next – it is the omniscient Father who is God. The fact is, God sees my tomorrow, today. He already sees the things we’ll face. He knows my future.

Do you know that God is not limited by time? He can be in the past, the present, and the future all at the same time. It’s like if you were in the Goodyear Blimp looking down on the Rose Bowl Parade. You could see the beginning of the parade and the end of the parade all at the same time, without even stopping it. God, from His perspective, can see past, present, and future all at once. He sees all my tomorrows, today. That gives me great confidence in God.

Isn’t it comforting to understand that He knows everything that is going to happen in my life? He not only knows about the future, He’s there. He not only walks with you day by day, but He’s actually out there in the future. He’s already prepared for everything you’re going to face — tomorrow, next week, and next month.

What happens in the future may surprise us but it’s not going to surprise God. God is not in heaven wringing His hands, wondering what will happen next–nothing ever catches Him by surprise. The crisis that you’ll experience next month, next year, or whenever, the inevitable crisis that catches you and you ask, “What’s happening? Where is God?” God’s been there all along, preparing. He knows your future. He is in your future and He’s prepared for everything. That gives me confidence. I know when I hit that crisis, it may surprise me, but it hasn’t surprised God.

So if God knows the future and it is what it is, then do we just surrender to fate? In the book of James it says, “If any man lack wisdom let him ask God” — Our response is if I know that God knows all my tomorrows, today, then I should ask for advice. Yes, it is true –He knows what’s going to happen. In Jeremiah 33:3 it says, “Call unto Me and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you know not.” The things you don’t know, God can tell you about. He’s not going to lay out your whole life all at once, telling you everything that will happen in your life. If He did you’d get very discouraged or full of pride or both. He will lay it out a little at a time. He says, “Call to me. I’ll give you advice because I know what’s going to happen!” From God’s perspective, since He knows everything that’s going to happen, you can ask Him for advice now.

Did you know that God knows all our faults and failures and He still loves us? God knows all of our frustrations and my feelings and He cares. Yes, God knows all of the future and will respond with wisdom, if we ask Him today.

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· 7:32 pm

Does God Know, or Really Care What Is Happening?


Stress Reduction Kit

What is it that get’s on your very last nerve? There is something that all of us are facing that is wearing us thin. Those are the things  that raise the temperature, creates stress, and causes things that would not normally to bother us to become larger than life. There times we get frustrated about the events of life and feel that no one cares or knows how we really feel. Yes, we even question if God really cares about what we experience in the times of disappointment and frustration. It is at times like this that we are overly concerned with the activity – what is happening or not happening – and not the process. In the process of frustration, disappointment, and discouragement; our response can be to give up.  However if during these times, we can understand that God knows about what we are going through and that nothing is escaping His watchful eye or concern– then frustration can turn into faith. What does the Bible say about frustration in the life of the believer?

Psalm 31:7 says, that God knows the depth and emotional impact of problems upon our lives, “you God have listened to all my troubles and have seen the crisis in my soul.” Now, some of you may think, “Nobody knows what I’m going through, nobody feels the pain I’m going through.” But listen, God knows.  Indeed, He knows our feelings and frustrations …  He has seen the crisis in the soul. Also, in Psalm 56:6 we are told that He is fully aware of the emotional intensity caused by continued frustration, “You know how troubled I am; you have kept a record of my tears.”  What does this mean to us today?  It means that  there is no hurt that goes unnoticed by God.  He has seen it all, He sees it all, and will continue to see it all — He knows exactly what we are feeling.

Have you experienced times that you have you felt that those around you in the church who are spiritual leaders have abandoned you at the hour of need?  In Galatians 6, there is instruction about the matter of hurting people and the spiritual responsibility to them, “Brethren, if you over take your brother in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering your own self, lest you also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” While people may, at times, fall idly through the fault lines of ministry in the church, one thing we can be certain of is that, God knows exactly what you are going through, where you are at, and is concerned about what is happening in your frustration.

Often when people are hurting it is common to feel isolated, very lonely, even when there are people all around. Maybe there’s been a death in the family, a divorce, maybe a lost job and you feel the sting of the crisis deeply. What an ideal time it could be for some spiritual person to come alongside and encourage, restore, and minister a sense of Godly concern. However, because no one calls, no one comes by to check on the person, they feel all alone, isolated, and think, “Nobody understands the way I feel, nobody can tell the way I feel, nobody feels the pain.” You may feel like that even right now, but let me assure you of one thing: no matter what you are going through, God knows. He understands our hurts, the feeling of isolation, and the frustration that is being experienced.

In Psalm 103:13-14 instruction is provided for readers to realize that God’s loving concern is always faithful, “He is like a father to us, tender and sympathetic for he knows what we are made of — dust.” He’s our creator. The fact is: God is sympathetic to my hurts and your hurts. Not only does He see, He cares.  God understands why it happened.

He knows the causes, the reasons, the things that brought you to this point.  He sees how it all fits together.  The Bible says He understands because He made us.  He knows my thoughts, my failures, my feelings, my frustrations.  He sees the hurt in your heart.  While no one else may care enough to … , God is always present in the hour of need – He is omniscient.  Placing your trust in religious people, preachers, prophets, and churches is often the route that leads to disappointment — God is always faithful to you because He knows and continues to love — no matter what.

What should I do?  In Psalm 142:3 it tells us that, “When I am ready to give up, He knows what I should do.” It is God that has the answer and holds the future in His hand. Others may tell you that your just over-reacting or make you feel like what is happening to you is not important, but listen; it is important to understand that God is not only omniscient, he is sovereign and is uniquely interested in all that is happening in your life.  You may be ready to give up, but God is not.  He knows what is happening and what you ought to do– He has a plan for your life.

If He sees and understand the pain that I feel, what should you do right now? A place to begin is in 1 Peter 5:7, where a solution is provided “Cast all your cares on the Lord, for He cares for you.” Cast them all permanently, once and for all and don’t take them back. Give Him your hurts just like you give Him your faults, every area of your life.  Then, let God resolve the frustration that you feel about your life, what has happened, and what the future will hold.  He is omniscient and He is sovereign.

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· 7:26 pm

What Does God Really Know About Me?


My Shame

So, if God knows all about himself, creation, and all of history: What does he know about the personal and often times hidden details of our lives? In Psalm 139, a description is recorded of what God knows about who we really are. The psalmist says that He is intimately acquainted with every detail of our lives. Many people will profess that they believe that God knows everything. However, when attitudes, behaviors, and motives are examined under the scrutiny of how God views the reality of our lives, it might be concluded that we really do not believe or maybe we really do not care what God thinks about what is happening today in our lives. Therefore, do we really believe that God has infinite knowledge and if we do what does he know about us?

He knows all our failures and still loves us. In Psalm 69:5 it says, “My sins, O God, are not hidden from you; you know how foolish I have been.” How embarrassing it is that God knows everything about us. The fact is, sometimes we want to forget the omniscience of God because it’s a little uncomfortable. It is painful for me to realize I don’t have any secrets from God. There are some things I’d rather God not know about me. But I don’t have any secrets and neither do you. God knows everything.

When we do something wrong, we try to hide our sins, sneak them past God, put them in the closet and lock the door but God knows what’s behind that locked door. Remember Adam, who when he sinned, ran away and hid– as if you can hide from God. When God came down walking through the Garden and asked, “Adam, where are you?” Was it that he did not know the answer already? No, but rather when God asks a question we must understand that it is never for information, never for His benefit. God knew exactly where Adam was. Adam needed to know where he was. Remember what God asked Cain, “Where’s your brother Abel?” Abel had been killed and He wanted Cain to admit it.

In Proverbs 5:21, it is recorded that “a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths.” We always have an audience. Nothing can ever be said that is “off the record.” God is always watching, we are always on stage, there is no secret closet. Everything that is thought, everything seen, everything felt — God sees it all. He knows all about it.

That means this week when you were on your diet and you got up for one of those midnight refrigerator raids and you open the refrigerator or freezer and think, “Just one bite…” The devil has a line for us then. He says, “No one will ever know.” So we go ahead and do it and then, afterward he hits us with another question, “What if they find out?” “What if my parents find out about what I’ve been doing– My wife/husband—boss– IRS?” And worry sets in like a nagging case of indigestion. Unfortunately, we have already been found out. God knows and He’s the one who counts. Yes, he knows all of our faults and failures.

The truth is that God is not shocked by my sin. He’s already seen it. He saw it coming. When we confess to Him the things we’ve done wrong, He’s not shocked. He saw it coming: “I know, I understand. I know why it happened. I know why you ended up in that situation.” He understands our faults and our failures.

What should we do at this point? Just be honest with God. Just admit it. The Bible says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Just admit that we are not fooling anybody. “You’re right God. I was wrong.” God knows everything about me. He already knows all I’ve done wrong and He still loves me. When I admit it to Him, it never changes the way He feels about me, because He already knows. He loves me and He loves me unconditionally. That means I don’t have to fake it, I don’t have to pretend.

Proverbs 28:13 tells us that, “Cover ups never work.” especially toward those who it counts most and that’s the Lord. God knows all my faults and failures.

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