I Stumbled and Fell then Went Around A Mountain.

"Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand joyful and faultless in his glorious presence, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and for all eternity! Amen."  Jude 1:24,25

I wrote about going around the same mountain as a Christian. You fail and fall and God picks you up and you go around the mountain again. It is like learning to ride a bike. First you fall, but with practice you start to soar and you can go down steep hills and keep your balance.

A mountain I've been going around all my life has been hopelessness and depression. I've battled it, but sometimes it gets the better of me. When I was 14, I took a bunch of sleeping pills. I had my stomach pumped and was sent to a psychiatrist. I'm afraid he wasn't much help which was due to my attitude.

There have been times since then that I thought about going through with suicide, mostly in my fifties and sixties. I would get to a point of feeling there was no hope for me to ever feel happiness again and it didn't seem worth living. This came to a head last summer.

Something happened in my family, some misunderstandings, and I felt completely devastated. I felt unloved and so alone. I knew I had God, but it just wasn't enough so I took sleeping pills once again. My husband came home and found me unconscious. I woke in the hospital, spoke to a psychiatrist and went home. I started weekly therapy and began to get better. I started to do all I could do to think positive thoughts and write down my negative thoughts and give them to God immediately - as soon as I started feeling sad. This was working and I started feeling happy; not just content, but actually joyous.

Then, something happened in the family that was close to what happened the time I took the pills. I hung up the phone and I heard God speak in my mind, "What are you going to do Belle? Are you going to take pills again?" I said, "No, Lord. I've learned you are enough for me. I don't need the approval or love of anyone else but you." And it was true, I felt calm about the whole incident.

Now, how did I learn that in a few months? I have no idea. I do know that it is hard to change without living through an experience. Just reading about how to trust God in all circumstances isn't the same as doing it because you have to. Maybe it was because I now had hope because the things I was doing were helping me think positive. Hope is so important. Everyone needs hope for their future.

 "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

It is interesting God is called the "God of Hope". He is everything good, and hope is good. Even if we are dying right now, we can still have hope. Hope in a future with God and happiness forever.

Making the Best of Everything.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." 

Philippians 4:8

A Triple Best.

by Arch. Alexander  (abridged)

Some time ago I came across the life-motto of George Stephenson, the "father of the locomotive," as he has been called. He said, "Make the best of everything; think the best of everybody; hope the best for yourself." 

First, MAKE THE BEST OF EVERYTHING.  In every set of circumstances possible or conceivable, there are always, at any rate, two ways of acting.  You can look for the helpful, bright, and hopeful things, and "freeze on" to these meantime.  Or, you can select all the doleful, somber aspects, and sit down in the dust with them.  Now, if it did not matter which a man did, there would be no good saying any more.  But it has long since become abundantly clear that the man who makes the best of his circumstances, however hard they be, comes most happily out of them in the end.  In other words, it pays to make the best of things. It is the cheery people who recover quickest when they are sick.  There are men who, if their house should fall in ruins about them, will contrive some sort of shelter meantime with the broken beams!  

Nobody pretends that it is easy, when we have failed, to gather our powers together and try again.  But nearly all the big men have had to do that very thing.  It certainly is not easy, when you have a heavy burden of your own, to spare a cheery word or a hand of sympathy for somebody who is really much better off, but there are plenty of people doing it at this moment.  Nero's palace is the last place in this world where you would expect to find a company of loyal Christian folk.  Yet there were such people there, "the saints of Cæsar's household."  And the grace of God that made that possible can achieve all these lesser wonders too.

Second, THINK THE BEST OF EVERYBODY.  The way to get the best out of people is to think the best about them. Let a man see that you have good hopes of him, and recognize what is best in him, and, in ways of which science can give no explanation, you add to his chances of reaching better things.  In any case, who would not wish to stand on Christ's side rather than on Judas's.  "This ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor." That is Judas.  "Let her alone.  Why trouble ye her?  She hath wrought a good work in me.  She hath done what she could."  That is Jesus Christ.

Third,--Don't leave yourself out of the picture. 
 HOPE THE BEST FOR YOURSELF.  Hope the best for yourself, and you are already a good way on the road to it.  Suggestion is a tremendously powerful instrument, even when you make it yourself. By self suggestion, the psychologists tell us, you can influence your actions, your character, and your general outlook in a wonderful fashion, either to your advantage or your hurt.  Therefore, they say, be careful never to suggest evil to yourself.  Never say to yourself, "I'm going to make a mess of this," or "I am not fit for that." Suggest success, happiness, health, and you beckon them to you.  

Hope the best for yourself, and you pave the way for its coming. On higher planes, the same holds true.  Hope on, and, though you fall you will rise again.  Believe that you will be enabled to face your trouble or temptation, and you will be brought through it somehow. Even when the end of life is near, hope still, for beyond this best there is a better, and God's road winds uphill all the way. 

But, you say, this is just faith.  I know it is.  Run your hopes for yourself up as high as you can reach, and they will touch God and become faith.  That is why you are to hope the best for yourself because God the Father loves you, and desires the best for you too.

I believe in the optimism which Stephenson's motto embodies, because I believe in the Fatherhood of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  That is why I counsel you to go on hoping that the best is yet to be.  Not that we can earn it at all, or that we deserve it at all.  But--because God, our Father.  And, for the daring and faith of that saying, this sufficient ground.--Because--Jesus Christ.

Psalm 33 - Our Hope is in God.

Psalm 33 - What it means to me.

No king is saved by the size of his army;

no warrior escapes by his great strength.

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;

despite all its great strength it cannot save.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,

on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,

to deliver them from death

and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the Lord;

he is our help and our shield.

In him our hearts rejoice,

for we trust in his holy name.

May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,

even as we put our hope in you.  Verses 17-22

Psalm 33 is about the power of God.  These last verses are my favorite because it shows total trust in God's power. No matter if there is war or famine, these verses tell us not to fear but to hope in God. 

Big Picture/Small Picture.

Someone who has a chronic illness told me they wished life could be the way it was before. She had years of happiness; a job, money and friends. All that is gone now. Why couldn't she be happy like that again?

I told her I had years like that too. The years my girls were young were my happiest. My husband and I were healthy and strong. We had good times camping and hiking. Those days are gone for me also. My husband has a chronic illness, I have a mental illness and my dear grandson has died.

I said, "You are looking at the 'Big Picture'. You now have to look at the small joys of life. Didn't we laugh and have fun when we were watching some cooking shows? Didn't we have a great time playing Scrabble? Didn't we enjoy watching that crazy 'Green Lantern' movie?

When life has gone south - it is the small joys of life that can keep us happy. Ask God for that mindset. And  reading the Bible, gaining strength, hope and happiness from God is the way to that mindset. I can then look at the even 'Bigger Picture' of God's kingdom and the life I will have there one day. I can see life from God's perspective. This is the 'hope' that the Bible speaks of; the hope of another life with eternal happiness and peace.

Hope in God.

Dear friends, I want to thank you for your prayers for Faith. I wrote on my other blog how she is finally no longer afraid of the wind. She is able to go out more and enjoy life. She had lost all hope; that is what I wrote about before on this blog. I am so thankful to God that the doctors were right that she would get better. I am thankful God was with her and us through this hard time. Of course, she may always have some problems, we don't know, but the worst of her illness is over.

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Hope  in God, for I will again praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 43:5

God has made us creatures who need hope. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

As I read this verse I was struck with how important hope is in the eyes of God. He is even called, "The God of all hope." And he wants us to overflow with hope.  The commentary says God inspires and produces hope.

What is the opposite of hope? Despair. God is not the God of despair - that is Satan's weapon against us. So, let us all pray for hope when things look hopeless, because with God no situation is ever without hope.

Hope

"May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with hope." Romans 15:13

Joy is never released through unbelief, but it is always present where there is belief. Believing is so much simpler than not believing. If we do not believe God, his word, and his promises, then we are left with the labor of reasoning and attempting to work out matters ourselves. (From the book, New Day, New You, by Joyce Meyer)

"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and over burdened, and I will cause you to rest." Matthew 11:28

I have been a Christian for many years, yet hope eluded me. So many awful things had happened in my life, I just gave up and hoped for nothing. But Joyce Meyer taught me to hope again by believing God could give me good things.

I began trusting God and believing he would work for me, that he would make my life happier. I started quoting the Bible each morning with words of praise for God and his power and goodness. Very soon I experienced happiness and hope, and soon God brought things and people into my life that made me happier and gave me the feeling of accomplishment. I no longer believed my life was useless.

Believe God loves you, believe he wants nothing more than to help you, and you will see some marvelous things happen.