Where is Your Hope?
If you follow me on Instagram, and certainly if you know me in real life, you’ve heard me say, “where is your hope?” It’s my favorite question to ask myself. I need to hear it over and over again because quite often—too often—I put my hope where it doesn’t belong.
You might have also heard me quote this verse: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
That’s James 1:17 and it’s one of my favorite verses, partially because it’s so beautiful. The Father of Lights. What an image! I immediately imagine sitting in an old willow tree with fireflies in among the boughs. A safe place, full of wonder. I’ve painted that picture a number of times and will surely paint it again. There are some pictures I can’t get enough of. But the other reason I love that verse is because of the part about there being no variation or shifting shadow. A shifting shadow is a thing you can’t count on. It’s a comfort one minute and then it’s gone. You could fall asleep in a shifting shadow and wake up an hour later with a sunburn. It’s happened to me before. Ouch! Shifting shadows are undependable. God’s not like that. He’s steady. Dependable. A good place to put my hope.
Do you ever hit a wall? Have one of those days where all your flaws and failures parade themselves through your mind and you imagine for a moment, what it would be like to be judged based on your performance? Sort of like you’re on the witness stand in your own mind and you’re shrinking beneath the harsh stare of those jurors and that shockingly sharp-tongued prosecutor…who is making some pretty good points. I do hope you’re not feeling like that today.
Not long ago, I had one of those days. And at the end of it, I remembered to ask myself, “Where is your hope?” And suddenly the sharp-tongued prosecutor got a lot quieter. Because I remembered that thankfully my identity and my hope doesn’t rest on my performance, which is a shifting shadow. It rests on God’s performance—His perfect unshifting character. He’s the willow tree with the fireflies in the boughs. My hope is safe in Him.
~Amy