Looking Forward with Hope

“Hope in God, For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.” -Psalm 43:5

Are you really walking the walk of faith? Ask yourself these questions: Am I looking ahead with hope, or am I looking back with disappointment? Do I tend to count my strikeouts, or do I tend to count the hits?

If you keep score of your mistakes, setbacks, and disappointments, you undermine your faith as surely as a raging, flooded stream undermines the foundations of a building.

Charles Spurgeon, the famous English clergyman, once faced a great disappointment. He went to visit a farmer who was a devoted elder in his church. The farmer said, “Pastor, what is that cow doing?”

Spurgeon looked and answered, “Well, she’s looking over the wall.”

The farmer said, “Yes, she is looking over the wall because she can’t see through it.”

In the walk of faith, there will be times when you face walls that you can’t see through. But you can look over them! When you look beyond, around, and over the obstacles, fanciful or factual, an amazing thing happens: You visualize yourself with the obstacle behind you! When you can imagine success, then an inner energy is generated that can best be described in one short word: “Hope”!

Hope is the difference between ultimate success or failure, between life or death.

I choose to live and succeed by continuing to look forward with hope.

In the process, I know that I am exercising the mountain-moving faith, which God promises to bless!

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