Ginny - Romans 4

Good Morning Girlz!!!! Ugh, I've got my feather's ruffled this morning! Can anyone else not stand nosey people!?!? I wish I had a better mechanism for handling them, but I normally just shut down & avoid them. Probably not the most loving thing to do!

O.K. on to scripture :) ...

S - Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said of him, "So shall your offspring be." vs. 18

O - O.K. did anybody else catch that? "against all hope...in hope believed" Does that sound contradictory to anybody else??? It certainly caught my attention! Against hope, he hoped. So, what does that mean? I think it means when every thing pointed against him and there was no escape or answer in sight Abraham kept hoping and hope set him free! He chose to believe God's promise and persevered till he saw it come to be.

A - O.K. so we all have probably had times in our lives where the odds were stacked against us. What do we do? Do we change our plan? Do we try to finagle the system so that things are more in our favor? Or do we continue to place our hope in the Lord and His promises? There are areas in my life that I get ahead of the Lord. I want what I want regardless if it is what His Word tells me is best for me. I do this with relationships and food primarily. Hope can be hard b/c it does require waiting. We throw those desires out to the Lord, and then we wait for the day we see them come true. That can get discouraging if we aren't very patient. I believe there is a lot to be done in the waiting. An active waiting takes advantage of the adventure and lives in the now while hoping for the future.

P - Lord, I start by asking You to calm my nerves. Give me the grace, poise, and love to interact with people that annoy me (just being honest!). Lord I also pray that I don't give up hoping. I can get discouraged and become synical, but Lord may each day be fresh and full of life. Lord I believe in You, and I believe you want what's best for me. I place my hope in you.