I think we hear this concept all the time, and we say "Yes, that's true." We hear the sermons in our church every weekend and tend to agree with what the preacher says. But then we get into our workday midweek lives and wonder why life is so hard. We have a bad day at work, or we struggle at home, and we can tend to wonder when God will move on our behalf.
It is true: hope and hurt are not mutually exclusive. Hope often rises in the midst of hurt. Take a look at the book of Isaiah. I have been reading this in recent weeks, and there are two common themes:
1-There is judgment in store for those who have disobeyed God and His commandments.
2- Even with this judgment there is hope coming with which the world will never be the same.
Isaiah 36-37 features the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Sennacherib is extremely bold, mocking God left and right. He believes the God of Israel is nothing more than one of the wooden idols that had been torn down in one of his many conquests. For Hezekiah, the news is troubling, if I may understate. He had been following God like his ancestor David, trying to obey the laws of God and follow His word, and this comes? Imagine the stress! The great conqueror of the land, calling Egypt a bunch of nobodies, is basically telling you to prepare, no one can save you.
In the midst of this, hope comes. He takes Sennacherib's words to the temple, lays them out before God, and declares his hope. What happened? God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, and declared to him his hope was not unfounded. He told him He knows everything about that guy: when he sits, when he stands up, and he will take care of him. The next day, 185,000 men are dead, without a single blow. Sennacherib returns home and is murdered by his sons. The mighty conqueror is now just an afterthought of history.
Sometimes to get to the place you want to be you have to go through the rough part of town.
Sometimes to get a job you want, you might have to work a job you don't want.
Sometimes you are detoured to a different place you than where you thought you were going.
But God hasn't left you. The voices telling you that He doesn't care will soon be silenced as His glory will be revealed in you.
