hope – David Andrew

January 8, 2017

Prophetic word from the movies?!

Yep, I feel like God was using the movies recently to prophesy His intentions for us in 2017. Specifically, the new Rogue One Star Wars movie had wave after wave of Presence on various aspects in the plot. Here’s what I believe God wants us to know, cling to, and rejoice in this year, as conveyed through a movie!

* God is breaking in suddenly and setting free people who have gone through trauma or deep loss in their childhood. This will be a turning point where these people will begin to see how God is working things together for good to redeem their story.

* If you are one of these people who suffered trauma or deep loss as a child, you have the ability to give hope to those who are in the midst of suffering now. Your willingness to engage with society and fight on behalf of the oppressed will ignite hope within others that reaches far beyond your direct sphere of influence and outlives you for years to come. In other words, your choice to hope in spite of your past will empower others to choose hope in spite of their present.

* People in authority may not listen to your words, but people of influence will be drawn to your lifestyle and the people of authority will follow what you initiate among the people of influence.

* This is a time for you to be true to yourself, know your story, and not apologize for who you are – wounds and all. Your honesty about what’s going on inside of you will allow trust to flow both ways in your relationships with others.

* In the midst of this season, God wants to get a message across to you: He loves you as a Father, not a day goes by that He doesn’t think about you, and He has always had your best interests in mind.

September 12, 2012

Gladden

Ray of Light — Something about a ray of light speaks to me of hope being fulfilled.

I struggled greatly trying to title this post. I came across this shot completely accidentally. I was attempting to take a picture of the wire mesh at an askew angle for fun when I noticed the gleam of light from the sun’s last rays. It’s like a light that strikes your peripheral vision. Have you ever had that happen to you and had it catch you unawares? Something about the idea of a sudden, unexpected ray of light speaks to me of the way God works, the way He fulfills hope that is placed in Him. Situations may seem to be against hope ever being fulfilled, but we serve YHWH, the God who created out of nothing. He takes even what is seemingly set up against His purposes and re-structures it to proclaim His glory. Like an unexpected ray of light, He transforms the ordinary into something eternally extraordinary. He satisfies all desire, He fulfills all longing, and He gladdens the heart with His presence. He is a God Who meets hope. Place your hope in God—it will be fully met because of Who He is.

January 3, 2012

Recall

It all started with waking up. The threads of consciousness, woven and spun into the glory fall, worked their way into me, seeping into the dreams lingering in my mind yet being steadily dispelled by the constancy of activity in the physical domain. Stillness.

I had a thought upon waking up, profound and personally meaningful. Yet the wording and phrasing of the thought escaped the frail grasp of my groggy brain leaving nothing but the impression of a feeling—one of longing and hope but forever more ineffably gone. What’s worse: I was at my laptop with a blank page ready to scribe these musings, yet the words had left.

So here I am, writing what remains of the experience: can I piece together the thoughts leading up to the particular idea? Can I trace my feelings back to their origin?

No; it’s hopeless.

Why does the subconscious taunt me so? Is there a greater good to be realized from the loss of this thought?

Perhaps. The feeling of hope that lingered: this is worth treasuring. This feeling is worth storing up in my heart. The more hope I store in my heart, the more I will speak and act out of hope. The more I speak and act out of hope, the more others around me will be encouraged to do the same. So then, if I change my approach to life based on this positive feeling, then I have been affected by the original idea, even though I cannot understand it, nor express it to another person. I have felt the idea and that’s all I need in order for me to act on it. Maybe soon I will find again the words to phrase it to another, but for now, it remains alive and un-cheapened by the confines of verbal expression. I recall the substance of my idea, unfettered in my spirit. Though I cannot explain the thing that gives me hope, I know that I have it. I hold this hope as in a jar of clay, and the darkness of my mind has not understood it. Thank God that I am being renewed inwardly day by day.

Perhaps my encounter this morning was not with an idea at all, but with the very Spirit of God. Perhaps I awoke not to my own thought, but to the Hope of Glory living in me, strengthening my spirit. Praise the LORD, O my soul!

December 28, 2011

Looking On

Looking on, keep looking on,
Expectantly await the dawn,
You who cling to hope may wait,
May yet your heart now satiate,
Oh do not cease from looking on!
Continue pressing on in hope
And its related isotope:
In joy, that is; may yours be full,
This is the substance of the tulle,
The fabric of the wedding veil,
Fastened quick with thankfulness,
The bride of Christ is thus arrayed,
The love of Christ therefore displayed
In one for whom He bled and died,
Whom Satan shall fore’er deride
Yet powerless fore’er remain,
The righteousness of God implied
That He should hold us in disdain,
We, in our Advocate, confide,
Sin, where is thy gruesome stain?

April 19, 2011

Brand New

Hey there! So, today felt brand new. This has been my fourth day on Spring break and, lest I become complacent, today came with a sudden change of pace. I had to leave the house actually because my mom was doing childcare. Anyhow, I decided to walk to the Bayside Church Cafe (because I don’t have a car) and work on homework. So that’s just what I did. I left the house at 9 AM and made it to church at 9:45. I even finished a whole paper while I was there! Then I left around 2:15 PM and as I was walking home, I stopped to take this picture:

Power Lines — I really love man-made objects.

I don’t know why, but it struck me as particularly picture worthy. It’s just so expansive. I like wide-open spaces. At this point, I was almost home, but instead of going home, I decided to walk through Maidu park nearby and I ran into a guy I know from school who I had no idea lived there! How cool. Then I saw these clouds and just had to take another picture:

You might be wondering at this point why I’ve bothered to tell you every little detail of my day. It’s because I never used to think this way. Something in me has changed. I don’t really know how, but living at school for nine months out of the year has caused my perspective to change a little bit. Honestly, I don’t like being back at home. I wish I was on my own. I wish I had a car. I wish I had lots of friends that I could go do things with. I wish I had a steady source of income. But that’s the wrong way of looking at things.

I used to be dominated by routine. No longer am I stuck in my circumstance. Somehow, all of the lessons I’ve been learning about seeking Jesus every day has caused me to see that it is possible to live above my circumstances. This whole time that I was walking, I was also praying. What I noticed about today is that, although I am in a familiar environment, my interactions in it have changed. Maybe there is hope after all that change can happen. Maybe there is hope that I bring a little bit of the kingdom of heaven to the world around me as I renew my mind. Maybe there is hope that good things will come of all my desires. It’s a little change, but I’m beginning to feel as though that’s a misnomer because even a “little” change takes a great deal of effort, sometimes more than we can humanly exert. That must mean that God is moving!!! Thank You, Jesus!