Get Your Hopes Up!: Expect Something Good to Happen to You Every Day (19 page)

An article in
Reader’s Digest
said:

The difference between the vulture and the hummingbird is a lot like the difference between worry and hope. Like the vulture, worry feeds on things that have no life: negativity, pessimism, fear, anxiety. It’s an ugly way to live, savaging for sustenance among dead and dying things. But hope is different. Like the hummingbird, hope is beautiful. Hope seeks new life, feeding on what is fresh and new.

As a child of God, it is your right to enjoy your life, but in order to do that, you will need to choose to be positive, looking for what is fresh and new. Being positive means that you’re actively looking for good things. You’re constantly believing and searching for the good things God has for you, not looking for or anticipating the next disaster.

It’s not enough to just get rid of negativity—that’s just the beginning. You have the opportunity to get rid of negativity… and then embrace a positive outlook on life!

I remember when God dealt with me strongly about the effects of negativity and challenged me to stop thinking and speaking negative things. I went a few months and thought I was really doing well, but I still didn’t see any positive changes in my circumstances. As I pondered the situation, I sensed God showing me that although I had greatly improved in not being so negative, I had failed to begin being positive. God wants us to not only stop doing wrong things, but He also wants us to do the right things. The apostle Paul taught that the thief should steal no more but work so he could help others in need. He said we should avoid anger and resentment and instead be kind to everybody, doing what is for their benefit (Ephesians 4:28, 31–32).

God wants to replace the worldly principles with godly principles. You see it all throughout the Bible. He takes our sin, and He gives us His righteousness. He takes our turmoil, and He gives us His peace. He takes our sadness, and He gives us His joy. He removes the bad thing, and He brings in the good thing.

Here’s what it might look like in your life…

As I mentioned in the last chapter, the Bible says that God looked at creation and “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). I love how God took time to recognize and appreciate the good. I think we should do the same thing. Let’s choose to be hummingbirds, not vultures. Let’s put aside the negative things and go in search of the things that are good. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be a hummingbird than a vulture.

If you’ve dealt with worry or anxiety in your life, this could be a moment of breakthrough for you. You can decide to live your life full of hope in God, excited and optimistic about His plan for your life. Worry isn’t part of your DNA. It’s an enemy that you can defeat with the Lord’s help.

When difficult situations arise, you don’t have to panic and fall apart; you can be full of peace and composure. The Lord is your Rock, and He will anchor you so that you’re not tossed around by the storms of life. So go ahead and get your hopes up. You can be a hummingbird, not a vulture. You can see the good in every situation rather than the bad. And if you come across a storm and the turbulence has you feeling afraid, don’t worry… your Heavenly Father is your pilot!

I carefully considered how to begin the last chapter of this book, but I kept coming back to those four words: A
LL
Y
OU
C
AN
E
AT
! I’ve written over 100 books, but I can safely say I’ve never begun a chapter like this.

“All you can eat” is something you may not indulge in often, but you probably make the most of it when you do. Recently someone I know told me that he takes his family to an all-you-can-eat buffet every Thanksgiving—it’s their family tradition. Instead of cooking all morning and cleaning dishes all evening, they go to the same restaurant each Thanksgiving holiday and enjoy the buffet. Trip after trip to the counter for more turkey—plate after plate of potatoes, stuffing, green beans, yams, and cranberry sauce. And for this special occasion, he and his wife let the kids go to the dessert bar as
many times as they want. He said, “Joyce, we only go out for ‘all you can eat’ once a year, but when we do, we definitely get our money’s worth!”

I mention this as we begin our last chapter together because I think hope is an item on God’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet menu. It’s not the only dish He offers, but it’s a prominent one. Grace, hope, love, forgiveness, acceptance, strength, safety—these are just a few of the things God offers with no limitations. You can never go back for grace too many times. You’ll never exhaust the Father’s supply of love. It’s impossible to ask for too much hope.

Whatever you’re believing God for today—whether it’s regarding your family, your emotional health, your physical health, your relationships, your career, your finances, your future—take the limits off. Go back to the buffet and fill up on hope as many times as it takes. When people talk about you, they should say, “That’s a person overflowing with hope. No matter what happens, no matter what it looks like around them, they never give up on God.”

Look at your soul as a glass; don’t let it be just a quarter full of hope. Don’t settle for halfway full of hope. Three-quarters of the way full of hope isn’t enough. You can even do better than being full of hope—let hope spill over, splash everywhere, and get all over other people. Choose to overflow with hope in God. Believe He is going to do exceedingly and abundantly more than you can even ask or think (see Ephesians 3:20).

One of the things we know about Jesus is that He likes to exceed expectations. There is no doubting His power, because He does more than give us what we need; He gives us what we need… plus some. Here is a Scripture that positively confirms this principle:

God promises enough for you and an overflow besides so you can help other people. This sounds like an exciting way to live, and I sure don’t want to miss it—do you?

In John chapter 6, we find the familiar story of Jesus feeding the crowd of 5,000 (plus the women and children). The disciples were panicked because the crowd was hungry, and there was no way they had enough food to feed all these people. A hungry mob and helpless disciples—this did not look good.

Can you relate to that feeling of helplessness? Have you ever been in a situation where the problem was so big you knew there was no way you could fix it on your own?

This may be how the disciples felt. People were looking to them, but they felt hopeless. Their problem was too big, and their abilities were too small. So they did the only thing they could do—they
went to Jesus. The Word of God tells us Jesus took the very little they had (five barley loaves of bread and two small fish), He prayed over it, and then He began to multiply it.

At first, the disciples probably assumed it would only feed two or three people. But the supply kept coming from the hands of the Savior. Ten people were fed, 100 people were fed, 500 people were fed, 1,000 people were fed. To their amazement, the provisions kept coming and coming and coming! And the most incredible part of the story isn’t just that everyone was fed—everyone was fed until they were full and satisfied… and there were still 12 baskets of food left over. Jesus provided more than enough.

A
LL
Y
OU
C
AN
E
AT
!

If Jesus could satisfy a hungry crowd, just imagine what He can do for your hungry soul. Whatever you are going through today, it’s no match for the power of God in your life. There is no reason for you to be worried or afraid—hope is here. The same Jesus who provided so much food that there were 12 baskets left over—He’s providing for you too.

Don’t hesitate to believe and to ask God to do the unthinkable and unimaginable in your life. One of God’s favorite things is to take something that is thought to be impossible and turn it into amazing possibilities. When the sea gets in the way of His people’s escape, He parts the sea. When the sun starts to go down during a victory, He tells the sun to stand still. When a restless crowd gets hungry, He feeds them from a lunchbox. Every time He moves, there is victory, daylight, and food to spare. So don’t ask God for barely enough; try asking Him for too much. Don’t ask with a selfish motive or you may get nothing, but if you want more than enough so you can be a blessing to hurting and needy people, you can expect exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all you can
hope
, ask, or think (Ephesians 3:20) (emphasis added).

In Luke chapter 5 we see an account of Jesus coming to His disciples after they had fished all night and caught nothing. He told them to go out into deeper water and lower their nets again. When they did something amazing happened.

Quite often when things don’t work out, we get bad advice, or are disappointed by a friend, someone might say to us, “Well, what did you expect, considering the source.” In other words, they are saying what we put our confidence in was shaky and we were bound to get hurt.

One of the reasons more people aren’t overflowing with hope is because they’re putting their hope in the wrong things. They’re relying on a job, a relationship, the economy, a political ideology, a dream, or even a spouse to make them happy and fulfill their needs rather than looking to God. There is nothing wrong with any of those things at first glance, but they were never meant to be the very source of your hope. God is the only source that never runs dry. We talked in the beginning of the book about the importance of our hope having God as its source, but it is so easy for us to drift away from this important truth that I wanted to include it again in this final chapter.

1 Corinthians 8:6 says:

God is the “Source of all things” and He is the One in “Whom we have life.” If your hope is based on anything other than God, you’re going to be disappointed. The emotional stress many believers live under happens because they’re relying on the wrong sources. If your hope is in a person, in a program, or even in yourself, you’re going to suffer frustration and heartache time and time again because these are limited sources. And the longer you try to draw from these dry wells, the deeper and more pronounced the disappointment will be.

Psalm 42:11 says, “Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me?
Hope in God
and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God” (emphasis added).

David was doing something really wise in this verse of Scripture. Even though He felt downcast, and even though he didn’t necessarily feel hopeful, he started talking himself into putting his hope in God. He told himself
I will hope in God today, and I will praise Him. It doesn’t matter whether I feel like it or not. God is my source, and I will put my hope in Him!
He ignored his mood and decided to hope in the only Source who could sustain him. David had experienced the delivering power of God in the past, and he knew that God is faithful.

I could not begin to count the number of times that God has shown His faithfulness in my life, and you probably can say the same thing. Why should we waste our time depending on something shaky? Let’s put our hope in the right source and avoid lots of disappointment.