Greetings from Moldova! It’s hard to believe that it’s Month 10 of this journey. It’s been an incredible year so far and I’ve seen and learned so much in my time away from home.
This month finds us in Moldova in a town called Floresti. I remember in the months leading up to this I tried to imagine what Moldova would be like. I knew it was a poor country that used to be part of the Soviet Bloc, so in my head, I pictured old, run-down buildings and an overall depressed atmosphere. However, in just two weeks here, I can see that these assumptions were not correct. The countryside we drove through is beautiful and the town of Floresti is a lot more modern than I anticipated. The people here have been so friendly and loving to us. I love how God continues to shatter my expectations with each country I visit.
We are living and working with a church for our ministry this month and helping out in two major programs: the youth and the elderly. My team and I help with the church’s kids programs and help the kids improve their English by interacting with them. This church also has a large ministry to the elderly widows (the “grannies” as they are affectionately called). Most of these women lack the resources necessary to provide for themselves so the church has a clothing and food ministry set up. This program provides for almost 300 of these “grannies” in the county of Floresti! As you can imagine, that’s a lot of food and clothes to move around, so we help the church with this. We help deliver the clothes and also assist these amazing women with any chores they might need around the house. Below, you can see a picture of a warehouse we filled with bags of clothes.
This month has been an awesome one so far, but certainly not without its challenges. A lot of old struggles and temptations have raised their ugly heads, leading me to feel frustrated and discouraged. It’s so easy to feel hopeless – to feel as if I haven’t grown in the past year or to feel that I am a failure because I am being affected by old desires and old ways of thinking.
But, I praise God that he doesn’t take me through these times of challenges for no reason. There is always a lesson to learn and one of the big lessons that God has been teaching me this month is in regards to hope. This is a word that appears frequently in Scripture yet it’s one that I hadn’t fully pondered until recently.
It’s interesting to see how many English words can become watered down or even have their meanings altered through overuse or abuse. The way that “hope” is often used in the English language today denotes a kind of wistful uncertainty. For example, people will often use it in phrases like, “Well, I hope this happens.” There is no certainty or confidence in the statement but rather a surrendering to chance. While this can be appropriate in dealing with fallible people or future situations, I believe that this understanding of hope fails when it comes to understanding our relationship with God.
As I’ve been reading Scripture, I find a much different usage of the word “hope” in regards to our relationship with God. It is not used in a timid, uncertain, and doubtful way. Rather, it is grounded in knowledge and experience of who God is based on His Word and His past faithfulness. Because we see how God has kept His word in the past, we can have confidence that He will continue to remain faithful when He has promised good to those who obey by faith.
“So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.” – Hebrews 6:18-19
“But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:8
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’” – Lamentations 3:21-24
As these verses suggest, we have a hope that is based on the unchangeable character of God. Even though we may not be able to physically see it or tangibly feel it, we can have a confident hope that is far superior to a wistful and uncertain hope that the world so often gives us. It is based not on an uncertain future but on a trustworthy and unchangeable God. By reminding myself of who God is – my Father, my Comforter, my Savior – I can renew my hope in Him and His attributes revealed in His Word.
So, how is this hope practically lived out? Whether I am suffering through trial and desiring to abandon God or whether I am in the midst of temptation and wanting to return to my old lifestyle and habits, I can hold onto hope and persevere. I have hope that God will bring me through the trial and is using this time to build my faith and equip me. I have hope that no matter what temptation I face, God has better for me if I continue to trust Him and obey His commandments. I am not wistfully dreaming or nervously taking a blind leap. I can see how God has been faithful to me in the past when I trust and obey Him and I can also see how He has been faithful to all those in the Bible who have lived by faith and trust.
I think it’s time to redefine hope, away from the shallow and towards a bold and confident trust that enables great acts of faith and endurance under trials.
I want hope like Abraham, as he left his homeland confident that God had a better land for him.
God provided Abraham a homeland and a promise that his descendants would fill and bless the earth.
I want hope like Joseph, who continued to obey and serve God even when his circumstances said otherwise.
Joseph’s faithfulness was rewarded as he ended up becoming the prime minister of Egypt and saving his family from starvation.
I want hope like Jesus, who, with full confidence in God, endured the Cross on our behalf, knowing and trusting the joy that the Lord had promised beforehand.
Hope is a joy-filled, faithful confidence, based on the truth of God’s Word and His past faithfulness to us, that God has better for us if we continue in love and obedience to Him.
Romans 5:2-5 “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
This hope is refined in the forge of trials and temptations and becomes an enduring force in our lives. There is no shame for those who hold this as the anchor for their souls. Hard times are sure to come, but praise God we can have a confident and powerful hope that sustains us because it is based on Him, not on ourselves or our circumstances.
This is God’s gift to us for our comfort, strength, and joy.
This is Redefined Hope.
Picking cherries for an elderly widow. Got to try some of them and came to the conclusion that Moldova has the best cherries!
