Hopefully Hopeless

The sun is shining today!!! (Thunderous applause, hooting, hollering, and general merry making ensues...)

That may not seem like the biggest deal for many, but we have just gone through the longest, darkest, coldest, cloudiest bout of winter weather. At the moment there are lovely splashes of sunshine and light reflecting off my mirrors and onto my walls. My beloved bedroom is glowing with the warmth of afternoon sunlight and I can see blue sky and white clouds outside my window. It is helpful that I could turn the heat up and warm up my little wheat bags to enhance the illusion of warmth on this sunny January day. Outside the temperatures are hovering somewhere around minus 10, but I will not complain!! The sun is shining and I will rejoice in this day that the Lord has made!

I bundled myself off to church this morning and was engaged in glorious worship and surrounded by the loveliest people. All of us on this strange sojourn, trying to make sense of our lives and our various pains and disappointments and bravely trying to keep believing that this will all be worth it one day...

The message came straight from the throne of God and poured over us like fresh water on desperately thirsty ground. Allastair Petrie spoke of the great power that is unleashed when God's people admit their helplessness and hopelessness and finally lift up their eyes declaring that we can't but GOD CAN!!!! He actually had us bow our heads while those of us who felt hopeless in different areas of our lives raised our hands. (Getting rid of the whole religious bondage that would even keep us from admitting that!!) 90% of us admitted to hopelessness and it felt so good to do it!

I have felt so weary and have found it difficult to even know how to pray. There is such need and such apathy. The church slumbers on and I don't even know how to rouse myself. So the message from Isaiah 57 was about obtaining, humility, holiness, hunger for God that trumps over every other hunger we have and admitting hopelessness. All this so that we can allow God to reign in and through us, bringing transformation.

I can't even begin to do the message justice here, but I can surely say that God had a good reason to tell us not to "forsake gathering together". There is the manifest presence of God that is released when saints gather in humility to worship their Creator and to be reminded of His promises through the spoken Word.

I'm so glad that I could admit to hopelessness. What a tremendous relief not to have to try to fix my broken self nor my broken world. I can't, but God can. And God will. As His people, humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways and pray.

Apparently there are amazing miracles of transformation taking place in areas all around the world. Where children stand and pray for their countries for hours every day, where prisoners accept the Lord en masse, where societies are turned around by a sovereign move of God on behalf of the prayers of His people.

So I will continue to lift up these hands and pray.

THY KINGDOM COME,
THY WILL BE DONE, HERE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN...

Yes Lord, You can and You will!!