Permission to Hope

This is my answer to a real girl who has real questions and concerns. You might have them too.

“You ask some tough questions. You’re asking me if you should trust God in a big way, big enough to ‘come through for you.’ Or, should you just give up on your hopes and dreams, give up on believing God will ever come through? Give up on trusting He’s enough and can fill your heart’s desire?

I know you’re looking at your life and you think nothing’s happening. Day after day the same. Same tasks, same people, same prayers, same results. You want badly to believe but can’t sense any change.

Truth is,

Heaven is buzzing and busy on your behalf. Heavenly things are happening you can’t see.

• Just because you can’t hear doesn’t mean it’s silent.
• Just because you can’t see doesn’t mean it’s any less real.
• Just because you can’t taste doesn’t mean the banquet’s not being spread.
• Just because you can’t feel doesn’t mean arms of love aren’t wrapped tightly around you.
• Just because you can’t smell doesn’t mean Christ’s fragrance isn’t surrounding your life.

Because trust looks like this: it’s blind and deaf and tasteless which is what makes it so hard. We’re used to touching & tasting, feeling & hearing, seeing & knowing. Our instant push button lives leave us incapable of waiting, of being alone, of being quiet. Incapable of hearing the still, small voice. You have to get small and low and quiet to learn these things. It’s a big reason why the road is narrow and few are able to find it.

I can guarantee you this: It’s real and He’s real. Whether you see or feel or hear or taste, it’s still real. It’s ‘calling those things that are not as though they are’. I want to give you permission.

Permission to hope, permission to dream. Permission to believe again.

You have permission to hear with spirit ears and see with spirit eyes. To feel love wrapped tightly around you. To feast at the banquet of His love.

He brought me to the banqueting house,
And his banner over me was love. Song of Solomon 2:4

You say you feel insignificant, forgotten and overlooked but you couldn’t be more wrong. You can’t even begin to count how many thoughts He thinks toward you! You are always, ALWAYS on His mind.

You’re not just His creation, you’re His child, His precious one, His delight!

I give you permission to dream, to create, to breathe Him in, to delight, to risk, to rest. Do you know you’re His beloved? Are you aware His heart beats for you? He sees and He knows the pain and the broken bits. He sees and He knows and He loves anyway. 

All you have to do is say yes to His yes. His yes is shouted loud. The heavens declare a great cosmic ‘YES!’ The stars may be silent but their brightness shines louder than any symphony.

Sweet, precious one. Do you know what God thinks about you, I mean what he really thinks? He says you are His workmanship. In Greek the word is ‘poiema’ and you know what it means?

Masterpiece.

Your life is incredibly precious to God and He knows the dreams and desires of your heart and cares about them deeply. He created you, in fact, He says you are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made! And He created you on purpose for a purpose.

Your dreams matter. Part of your journey is learning to understand His seasons. They come and go through our lives, some full of bright sunshine and life bursting with color and fragrance and some dark and cold, frozen hard. But the dark is where the seeds grow and the cold is what toughens the seeds so they can grow and thrive in the warmth.

We can’t see the sun on cloudy days but it’s still shining high above the clouds. You can’t see God working in your life right now but He is! He’s there and He’s in your future, getting things prepared, making ready, clearing the way.

Dearest girl, this is your time to trust. Do the thing at hand with all your might. He tells us to ‘arise, shine!’ We arise and do the thing and He shines forth in our lives.

In the book of Isaiah, He commands the barren to SING! Having walked through barrenness and infertility, believe me the last thing you want to do is sing! But it’s exactly right. In the dark and barren time if we will only sing the light will shine!

Believe in your future precious one. Take God at His word. Trust He has a good plan for you. Thank Him for what you have, even for the darkness. Know He is with you. Even though His plan may look different than yours, trust Him. And get to know Him now before the season changes. Make time to pray, to worship, to get low and quiet. It’s the only way you can hear His heartbeat.

And only then will you find He is really enough.”

You have permission to dream too. Dream big and be assured, He knows and He cares.