Deep Hope

Pastor and Tyler often describe Family of God as predictably unpredictable. Family of God’s unpredictability often results in a ministry that changes from one day to the next. Although each day seems to take shape very differently, there are a few things that are imperative for every day to possess. One of these things is hope.

For anyone who has ever been down to visit Family of God, you know that the brokenness here is worn on the sleeves of the people in our church and our community. Unlike you and I, the majority of our people don't do a very good job at hiding their desperate need for a Savior. In my time at Family of God so far, I’ve come to realize that brokenness is hard to look in the eyes. When I first started coming down back in January, I remember having this desperate urge to fix every broken thing I was seeing. Unfortunately for me, I've found that my idea of redeeming the world often looks quite different from God’s perfect plan. But, trusting in His plans and processes rather than my own has caused me to have a deeper understanding of hope.

Hope requires that we draw near to God as we remember that He is present with us in brokenness and suffering; that He is working all things, all broken things, together for His glory. More than this, hope does not just require that we know these things but also that we bring these things. By this I mean that we have been given the light of Christ and we are called to go shine His light in dark places.

For us at Family of God the call to hope and the call to bring hope takes many different forms. There are days when hope looks like choosing to believe the possibility of an alternate outcome for a child who seems to have every odd stacked against them. Other days hope means speaking truth and Scripture into the lies that Satan has been sowing. And still other times hope is filing the finger nails of a 4-month old baby, praying over them, and trusting that although you may never see that child again, there is deep power in being the hands and feet of Jesus to someone even for a moment. Every day the response might look different, but the call to have hope and to bring hope remains the same. I am continually reminded at Family of God that when the source of our hope is in Jesus Christ, it is never in vain.

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirt, who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:5