Return to the Stronghold of Hope

Are you wondering what on earth is going on in your life? Does everything feel chaotic and hopeless? Are you weary from standing for such a long time but not seeing things change? God has comfort and encouragement for you today, and He is going to refresh and empower you, so much so that YOU will become the one who will bring comfort and encouragement to others.

If you're feeling weary and discouraged today, you're not alone. Many have been feeling the sting of the challenges surrounding them of late, and I sense God's desire to wrap His arms around you and to give you the ability to carry on. He will empower you not only to rise above your own difficulties, but also to help others to rise above theirs.

How is this possible? Because it's His life in us and His strength in us which carries us through. It's His Word that is true about our circumstances - NOT what we are seeing and hearing.

It's quite likely that the circumstances you find yourself in are not something you have deliberately chosen. Other people may have made ungodly decisions which have hurt you... financial challenges may be crashing in on you... you may have received a health report you weren't expecting... you may be just realising that you are out of purpose and in an overwhelming place where there's no anointing on what you're doing, because you're not in God's will.

Sometimes you can make decisions to immediately change your track and solve the challenge, and where God shows you something to do you should always do it. However, sometimes you're in a situation where there's no way out of it but through... in fact there's no way you can solve it because only God can. It requires someone else to change their heart and turn to God so that they will start making good decisions, or it requires a financial or healing miracle. You may well want your circumstances or people to change yesterday, but it's just not yet happening and you feel between a rock and a hard place. What do you do?

Go Through With Joy!

Well if you're going to have to go through something, you might as well do it with joy! Sometimes, the worst part about going through something is the mental anguish we put ourselves through along the way, pondering on the worst case scenarios and letting satan play with our emotions by giving attention to fear! I'm not belittling what you are going through. Sometimes there are things in life which are exceedingly tough, and trust me, I know what that is. Yet I've got to tell you, it's amazing the impossible situations in the natural you can walk through with peace and joy, because you have mysteries of the future which keep the present in hope.

When you have God's Word on something, and you believe God's Word above what you can hear or see, you know that no matter what you are going through, God's promise is the final outcome. You might not really like the journey you're on along the way, but you know how it's going to end. God is not a man that He shall lie (Num 23:19). So if what God has promised is where this story is going to end up, then what's the point in traumatising yourself along the way with focusing on the pain of the journey? Why not keep your eyes instead on Him, nurture your heart and feed yourself in His love, and find your strength in the joy that you will inevitably bubble up within you when you keep your eyes on your King and His Kingdom?

It was Nehemiah who said to those who were grieved (because they realised how far short of the will of God they had been), "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV) He knew that grief would only sap their strength and that to do what they needed to do, they had to be joyful.

You might say, 'It's easy for you to tell me not to grieve. Do you know what I have been through? Do you know what I have lost?" Some people have lost something or someone from the earth, and are in unspeakable pain, and only soaking in the love of the King will bring healing from grief. Yet many times, it only FEELS like we've lost something on the earth, but God actually says it's still ours and to stay steadfast in faith. Often, we simply cannot change the circumstances and we have to walk through things which don't look and feel good... and sometimes downright hurt. Grief makes our journey harder and longer, especially grieving things as though we've lost them, when God says they're still ours. It's like grieving the loss of your health or your life when Jesus says that you're actually healed. Or grieving the loss of a relationship, when Holy Spirit has shown you that person will be saved and the relationship restored. Or grieving the loss of finances when everything that has been stolen from you must be restored seven fold (Prov 6:31). If we believe that the end result is what God has said, not what man has said, how does grief help us to walk by faith? Will we believe God or the circumstances?

Paul and Silas could have grieved the loss of their freedom and potentially even their lives. They could have been angry about the unjust beating they had received or the closure of ministry doors. Yet in the darkest time, when they were chained in the innermost cell of the prison, what did they choose to do?

After they were severely beaten, they were thrown into prison and the jailer was commanded to guard them securely. So the jailer placed them in the innermost cell of the prison and had their feet bound and chained. Paul and Silas, undaunted, prayed in the middle of the night and sang songs of praise to God, while all the other prisoners listened to their worship. Acts16:23 - 25 (TPT)

They prayed and praised! They worshipped the Lord. They chose joy on purpose. Most people are waiting to FEEL like being joyful or FEEL like praising. Usually, it's just not going to hit you up the side of the head and you have to be like King David who told his soul what to do. Your spirit should be wearing the crown of your heart, not your soul (mind, will and emotions). Your spirit makes the decisions by an act of your will to align with God, and your soul and body follow. You can CHOOSE to praise and be joyful in the midst of storms.

I know this to be true. This is exactly how God led me out of depression, where I was many years ago trapped in a deep pit of it. Yet in nothing but obedience to Him and what He had shown me to do, day after day I choose to put off what I was feeling in my own emotions and chose instead to praise. Sometimes it was almost impossible to get myself to sing in the beginning, but before too long my emotions started lining up with the hope and the joy that I was singing about. Inch by inch I came out of that pit!

That is exactly what happened to Paul and Silas! Because they chose to praise in the midst of what could have caused them to feel discouraged or depressed, they came out of their prison cell! And praise will deliver you out of yours too!

Suddenly, a great earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. All at once every prison door flung open and the chains of all the prisoners came loose." Acts 16:26 (TPT)

Note how the chains of ALL of the prisoners came loose! Paul and Silas didn't just set themselves free, but their praise removed the chains of everyone else around them, who had been listening to them pray and praise. Whose chains will you remove when you choose joy over discouragement yourself? Who is going to be set free by your testimony of praising away your grief and discouragement?

I was absolutely captivated to read further and realise that Paul and Silas left the prison and went back to Lydia's house, where they met with the believers and comforted and encouraged them before departing. Acts 16:40 (TPT) So here were two men who should have been down and discouraged, but instead they chose joy and leaned on the comfort and encouragement of God within them, while they were still chained in jail. Because they drew on His joy in their hearts, they were then able to then go and give that same comfort and encouragement to others! It's amazing what we can do when it's not our strength in us that we live by, but Christ's strength in us.

If we're going through a hard situation, we need all the strength we've got to walk through it. Choose joy in the midst of the storm and you will have the strength that you need.

Live From the Stronghold of Hope

The inevitable result of joy is hope (and sometimes it's the other way around, too. We see the hope first and it brings us into joy). You actually will never have one without the other. When you start praising God in the midst of your difficult circumstances, you'll find yourself declaring things out of your mouth that are full of hope. You'll begin to see a new future and a new outcome to your situation, and you'll begin to realise that you can actually expect to have a great journey along the way.

Whatever you focus on, that is the direction that your emotions, actions and therefore your life will go. You can EITHER look at the problems, the circumstances and the frustrations, OR you can look at God. You can believe what your circumstances and challenges are telling you is true, OR you can believe what God is telling you is true. You can't believe both!

James says that a double-minded man is unstable in all of His ways, and that we are to be single-minded about what we speak, believe and how we act. How are we supposed to advance if one minute we are excited about the promises of God in our lives, and the next minute we are down and depressed because we haven't seen them come to pass yet? This is double-mindedness - trying to go two different places at once and all it does it make sure you don't go anywhere! It's talking about where you live in hope and then shift to hopelessness, and back and forth.

Yet I have been quite captivated by Zecharaiah 9:12 and the understanding that there is actually a stronghold of hope that we can live from, and that we can become literally prisoners of hope, where we remain in hope and do not come and go from it. Return to the stronghold, You prisoners of hope. Even today I declare That I will restore double to you (NKJV). What is this stronghold and how do we stay in it? We find the answer in James.

But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. James 1:6 - 8 (NLT)

Double-mindedness is actually not about hope and faith, or doubt and unbelief... it's about loyalty and submission to God. At the end of the day, who is your heart going to serve? Because faith comes from God, and doubt and unbelief comes from our enemy. To align our hearts with doubt and unbelief is actually aligning our loyalty to the kingdom of hell, and you can imagine the ramifications of doing that! No, you must decide this day who you will serve and then choose to stay in alignment with the narrative of the kingdom you have chosen. If you choose to live in the Kingdom of God, you are choosing to believe what God says and to live in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). Your submission to the King will keep you in that place of hope.

How do we return to the stronghold? We look to our King. We praise and worship Him, we stay in His word, we remind our hearts of His promises towards us and we soak in His Presence. We choose to only believe (Mark 5:36). In so doing, we affirm who is Lord over our heart.

Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life. James 1:12 (MSG)

Are you loyally in love with the King? Then you have already chosen to live in the Kingdom and He has empowered you to do so through His life in you... even if your emotions are letting you down or you feel like it's not possible. All things are possible when you spend time with the King.

Why Survive When You Can Flourish?

Who wants to barely just survive and get through difficult situations? If I'm going to have to take a hard journey, I want to thrive as I do it. I want to flourish in it. I want to grow in it. I want to know that at the end of the challenge, I'm going to be a stronger and better person than who I was when I began it.

James says that when it seems as though you are facing nothing by difficulties, see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can! James 1:2 (TPT) In other words, wring out everything that you can from the situation. Take it as a personal challenge - not only are you going to survive this season, but you are going to flourish in it! Make the decision that you are not going to let satan hurt you any more than he already has. He wants you to be grieved, depressed, refuse to forgive others (or yourself), and step back or even blame God for your situation. He's expecting you to fall, but instead you're going to rise.

You're going to choose joy. You're going to live from the stronghold of hope by staying loyally in love with Him. And you're going to take back more from the enemy's camp than he ever stole from you! You are going to comfort others with the comfort with which you yourself have been comforted (2 Cor 1:4), and you're going to make the enemy sorry that he ever troubled you.

My prayer for you today is this: May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope. Romans 15:13 (AMPC)

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Be blessed as you experience the comfort and encouragement of our King and live your life bubbling over with hope!