THE POWER OF HOPE A few years ago a railway worker accidentally locked himself in a refrigerator car. He searched the carriage for a possible way to break out. He banged on the walls and door. All to no avail. He resigned himself to the fact that he would never get out alive. As he felt his body becoming numb with cold he took a pencil out of his pocket and recorded the story of his approaching death. He scribbled on the walls of the car: I am becoming colder... still colder... I am slowly freezing... half asleep - these may be my last words. When the carriage was opened the man was found dead, but the temperature of the car was normal. Officials found that the freezing mechanism was out of order and that there was plenty of fresh air available. There was no physical reason why the man had died. It was concluded that he had died because he had believed that he would die. He had lost all hope. Hope can be a very fragile thing. Discouragement, confusion, doubt and a series of negative events can esily destroy hope. BUT WHY THEN IS THERE DESPAIR? The scriptures say that there must be “an opposition in all things.” Satan uses despair to bind hearts and minds in suffocating darkness. Despair drains from us all that is vibrant and joyful and leaves behind the empty remnants of what life was meant to be. Despair kills ambition, advances sickness, pollutes the soul, and deadens the heart. Despair can seem like a staircase that leads only and forever downward. Hope, on the other hand, is like the beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances. It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn. It encourages and inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an eternal Heavenly Father, who has prepared a way for those who seek eternal truth in a world of obsession, confusion, and of fear.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 08:27:24 +0000
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