Looking Through the Lens of Faith

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You can either live your life believing or doubting... hoping or despairing. The circumstances of life are still going to come your way.

If I see my life through the lens of faith, then I see the circumstances I face are training me... Sent by God ... To teach me to simply have hope in Him no matter what the day looks like. I can spend my days in dread of the future, despair over my present, and regret over my past, 

OR I can choose to believe that God is turning it all around and working it for my good.
To die without hope would be the worst possible outcome, because it would mean that I spent days that could have been hopeful in gloom and doubt. Not only may my future be the awful wreck I'm tempted to imagine, but all the days leading to it would be filled with that looming darkness! That is darkness compounded!!

Hope lifts my heart TODAY outside of the circumstances today. It lives beyond present circumstance. It doesn't wait to see how things work out. It simply embraces the goodness of the One who holds my days. It fills me with strength and peace. Hope opens the door of faith and let's God come in to my thinking, feeling, and will and strengthen me with truth.
Because God won't violate my heart, doubt and despair are like putting a "closed for business" sign on the door of my heart God would otherwise enter through. It also puts an "open for business" sign on the door Satan would like to enter through.

Hope takes the same day I am going to walk through either way, and makes it brighter! Hope is my internal statement about the character of God. God honors those that hope in Him because it's an inward statement of His true goodness! It is literally praise in the "holy of holies" in my heart!.. the innermost space of my being. 

Hope is the highest form of worship. True worship is impossible apart from hope.

I choose hope. Its kind of crazy not to!

Psalm 31:24 Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart,
All you who hope in the LORD.
Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 147:10 He does not delight in the strength of the horse;
He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
11 The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy.
Psalm 33:16 No king is saved by the multitude of an army;
A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for safety;
Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope in His mercy,
19 To deliver their soul from death,
And to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the LORD;
He is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
Because we have trusted in His holy name.
22 Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us,
Just as we hope in You.

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