Lord, I want this pain to end on earth because it’s so difficult. Sometimes, it all makes me feel hopeless. You compassionately understand that feeling, giving us Job’s words to express it: “Where is my hope?” (Job 17:15). Just like when Job’s “plans and desires” were shattered, bringing despair (Job 17:11), I too fall prey to the lie that my suffering will never end.
But You promise that it will end!
Please help me find Your hope when I feel hopeless….as I interrupt my suffering with praise to You, Jesus Christ, my living hope.
Finding hope IN Jesus Christ, the OBJECT of my hope
And now, O LORD, for what do I wait? My hope is in You (Ps. 39:7 ESV).
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (Ps. 42:1-2 ESV).
Christ, of all my hopes the ground,
Christ, the spring of all my joy.
(“Christ, of All My Hopes,” Wardlaw, R., 1817)
Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (Jn. 4:14 ESV).
Through [Christ] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope
of the glory of God (Rom. 5:5 ESV).
Finding hope FROM Jesus Christ, the SOURCE of my hope
When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up (Ps. 94:18 ESV).
Let Your love my heart inflame;
keep Your fear before my sight.
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him (Ps. 62:5 ESV).
Fountain of o’erflowing grace,
freely from Your fullness give.
Finding hope THROUGH the Spirit of Christ IN me, every moment of earthly suffering
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11 ESV).
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27 ESV).
Still in You may I be found,
still for You my pow’rs employ.
’til I close my earthly race,
may I prove it “Christ to live.”
By Your grace, help me to trust and glorify Jesus
Firmly trusting in Your blood,
nothing shall my heart confound.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:3-5 ESV).
Safely I shall pass the flood,
safely reach Immanuel’s ground.
I praise You that I am safe in Your love and I have this hope! Jesus prays to Abba Father, for me,
“All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them” (Jn. 17:10 ESV).
Be Your praise my highest aim;
be Your smile my chief delight.
Finding hope when I feel hopeless by setting my hope on “Christ, of all my hopes”
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:13 ESV, emphasis added).
Thus, O thus, an entrance give
to the land of cloudless sky.
in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began (Titus 1:2 ESV).
who will sustain you to the end,
guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:8 ESV).
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21 ESV).
having known it “Christ to live,”
let me know it “gain to die.”
I praise You, my compassionate God of sustaining hope, love, and grace. No matter what You choose to do with my earthly circumstances and concerns, I have complete and confident hope in Your sure ending to this suffering. No matter how discouraged or hope-less I feel today, I can trust and glorify You, by Your gracious gift. It’s all the work of Your indwelling Spirit. My whole life, from beginning to Your promised glorious end, is anchored in Your steadfast and covenant love for me in Jesus Christ. So please give me Your strengthening hope, for the next hour and the next and the next, until I see my beloved Savior. In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, Copyright © 2022
Resources for our hopeless times, singing our hope in Jesus Christ
When lies of hopelessness invade our thoughts, I’m praying that Singing Christ’s Hope will help us both “know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18 ESV), enduring this suffering with hope. Let’s sing of our sure hope, finding hope “into” the hopeless moments!
Along with other resources below, this week’s playlist gift sings Scripture echoing “hopeless” feelings to our loving Father, sings of our hope in Christ as we suffer, and encourages us to keep going with hope until our suffering ends one glorious day. I’ll be singing right along with you, into the hardest moments, sister in Christ.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (Rom. 15:13 ESV).
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