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Renewed hope
I’m a keen fisherman. Well … maybe ‘keen’ isn’t the right word. I’m a pathetically hopeful fisherman who is rather useless at fishing. Fish look forward to free takeaways when I’m around. My bait has helped many fish increase their waistlines.
I’ve gone fishing on numerous occasions—leaving home with high hopes only to return in a state of fisherman gloom. A few bites here and there … and those were from pesky sandflies! So now my fishing gear slowly gathers dust in the garage along with my big fish hopes.
But to feed my fishing fascination, I like to watch the Saturday afternoon fishing programmes on TV. And as I watch these guys (they do seem to be mostly guys, I notice) reel in fish after fish, I think, ‘Wow! It’s so easy!’ And I say to myself, ‘If I actually knew what I was doing, I’m sure I’d be able to catch those big fish too.’ And then I begin to get hopeful enough to grab my fishing gear with renewed enthusiasm.
You see, those fishermen on TV really do know what they’re doing. They know what gear to use, what bait will do the trick and where the fish are most likely to be. They have honed their skills to become highly successful fishermen. Not just average, but extremely good at what they do.
It’s great to be around people who are amazingly good at something. Their excitement and passion can be catchy. Their encouragement can help lift a discouraged person up.
Let’s face it; at times our hopes can take some pretty big hits. Unfulfilled hopes and dreams can be crippling. And sometimes it does take another person to help renew a dying passion in us. Like blowing on a smouldering fire, they can set that fire going again.
Renewed hope is a powerful thing. Talk to the woman reunited with her five-day-old baby daughter after she was kidnapped from Middlemore Hospital’s maternity unit in September. Discuss the subject of renewed hope with the American doctor who caught Ebola in Liberia, was subject to three weeks of quarantine as doctors administered an experimental medicine, and who is now a survivor of the Ebola virus. Hope helps us fight for what could be.
The Bible says in Psalm 42, Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
I need encouraging people around me to help me walk strongly with God. People who will help fire up my hopes and dreams. But more importantly, I need to put my hope in God, because he is the One who makes my life come truly alive.
‘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,’ writes Paul in Romans 15:13. So, maybe it’s time to stop letting those hopes and dreams gather dust in the garage and trust God to rekindle our enthusiasm for what might still be.
By Brenton Millar
by Brenton Millar | (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 1 November 2014, pp3
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