I looked away from my computer on a particularly challenging morning one day last week and read the daily Bible verse on my desktop flip-calendar. It was from Proverbs 13:12 – “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” I realized that my attitude had gotten the best of me, because I was hosting a pity party instead of giving my concerns totally and irrevocably to God. I had prayed about this particular situation, of course, but I was still trying to “fix” it. It was irreparable! There was nothing at all that I could do in my own power to change the circumstance, but I was still mumbling and grumbling about it.

I decided to look up passages about hope and see what I could find. This one from Job resonated with me like a pinky toe against the leg of a coffee table. It comes from chapter 6, and Job is responding to his friend, Eliphaz, who had offered him advice on how to face life’s trials back in chapters 4-5:

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Do I have the strength of stone? Is my flesh bronze? Do I have any power to help myself, now that success has been driven from me?” (Job 6:11-12)

Ouch. Job, man, you read my mind! It is so easy to fall into the pity party trap and focus on what ails us, instead of hoping against all odds and leaning on the one who is in control, anyway. Besides, even if I did have the power to “fix” the problem, my solution would have looked vastly different from the way the Lord began putting pieces in place in the coming days. I never would have imagined a solution like that, but then again, how could I? His thoughts and his ways are so much higher than any I could dream (Isaiah 55:9).

Let’s focus our prayer time this week on the hope that he offers us.