Hope Against Hope (#ChooseHope 2023)

God gave Abraham a promise and then let him sort it out over the next twenty-five years. That seems cruel. Abraham tried to do his part, but God kept refining his part out of the equation. Would he have his many descendants through a nonbiological heir like his servant? No, they would come from his own offspring. Would those offspring come through his wife’s maid? No, they would come from his wife’s own body. God hadn’t spelled everything out; Abraham sought clarification through trial and error and time.Eventually, all he could do was wait.

That’s a position God often puts us in, and it’s extremely frustrating. What do you do when you have a promise for a yes but you’re living in a no? When day after day the opportunity for fulfillment passes and God seems to do nothing to take advantage of the opportunity? What do you do when God fills you with hope and then moves you into more hopeless circumstances? Like Abraham, you hope against hope. When everything seems impossible, you remember that God doesn’t bow to impossibilities. That kind of faith produces great people and great nations.

Choose hope. Against all hope, hope anyway. Believe whatever God has promised. Long delays and circumstances moving in the opposite direction of your vision are normal, even confirming. This is how God works. He did so with Abraham and with others in Scripture. If you want to have biblical faith in the God who is working in your life, this is what it must look like.

Lord, faith is hard. The ways You dealt with people in the Bible are difficult to endure. But You rewarded the faith of those who endured, and I know You’ll do the same with me. Against all hope, I’m choosing to hope and believe.

This is an excerpt from The One Year Experiencing God's Presence by Chris Tiegreen, available at OMF Lit Bookshops, shop.omflit.com, Shopee, and Lazada for P365.

This year, experience a closer relationship with God than ever before.

All of us long for God’s presence, and we sense it―occasionally. But there are times when it seems like something’s missing . . . like deep encounters with Him. Certainty that we have heard His voice. And a palpable sense that we are experiencing His presence every day.

Like no other writer can, Chris Tiegreen draws us deeper into real intimacy with our intensely relational God. The One Year Experiencing God’s Presence Devotional will cultivate your sense of God’s presence in your life, help you learn to recognize His voice, and deepen your trust that He is “always ready to help” (Psalm 46:1) in every situation.