Placing our hope in the right place

        Complaining.  Ugh. I may not consider myself a complaining person...but God knows the truth. Because He sees my complaining, ungrateful heart.  Sure, I might not always voice my complaints out loud, but believe me, my heart loudly proclaims my ingratitude and grumbling.
        Just today, I've been complaining to the Lord about a lack of answers to prayer in a particular area.  In my frustration, I've demanded of the Lord, "Are You listening?  Do You care?  Why aren't You answering?!"
        Here's the thing: I know that I know that I know that God is always listening. That He cares infinitely.  That He is forever good, and His ways are always best.  BUT RIGHT NOW IT DOESN'T FEEL THAT WAY!!  So here's what this all too often ungrateful, grumbling, prone-to-wander girl is slooooooowly learning--pour out my heart to the One who hears, who cares, who loves, who acts, who knows all, and who will always do what is for my good and His glory.  He can take my complaining, my disappointments, my frustrations.  After all, He already fully knows exactly what my grumbling, disappointed heart is already thinking.
        But then like the Psalmist, I must choose--by an act of the will, by an act of faith (NOT FEELINGS!  Because I don't feel like it!)--to hope in Him.  To praise Him.  To trust Him.  Because no matter how I might feel at the moment, He is worthy.  He is holy.  He is all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, all-loving.
        Ps.42 puts it this way: after sharing his sorrows and frustrations ("My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'), the Psalmist then goes on to exhort his soul to hope in God.  He preaches the gospel to himself!  "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God." (v.5, 11) 
       That dog will hunt.
       My hope isn't in favorable circumstances or perfect outcomes or answers to my every prayer in the way I want!  No, my hope is in God.  And He will never let me down.  He will never forsake me.  He will never make a mistake. He will never do that which is not for our ultimate and best good and His glory.
       And if you need proof of any of that, just look to the cross.
       Goodness, I never even got to the wonderful list that our pastor shared recently from John Piper on how to battle complaining....but I'll get to that in a few days.  It's good stuff.  For right now, however, we have to begin by putting our hope--our true hope--in the only unshakable place.  The Rock that cannot be shaken, cannot be thwarted, and cannot be defeated.  We may not get the answer we were hoping for, but we've got the Lord who is infinitely beyond all that we could hope for or imagine.  And He is enough.
        Today, if you're having one of those no-good, very bad, terrible, frustrating days where answers to prayer seem few and far between, will you join me in choosing to move our focus from ourselves and our circumstances to our Lord?  Let's place our hope in Him.   For we "shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God."  Amen and amen.
         To God be the glory.