The Elephant in the Room

by John Paul Jackson

The Lord wants to increase your hope. No matter what you’re going through right now, whether you view your life overall as a positive or negative experience, whether things are going well or things are going poorly, if you are in good health or poor health if you are living in surplus or in need, if you are content or sick at heart—the Lord wants to increase your hope.

Hope is rekindled in our hearts when a word from God is spoken at the right time, in the right way, and in the right season. The Psalms put it this way:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

And in His word I do hope.

— Psalm 130:5

I firmly believe that once we’re transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His most marvelous light, when we ask for a fish, we don’t get a stone (1 Peter 2:9; Luke 11:11–13). He is a good Father, who gives good gifts to His kids. So we can say very simply to Him, “God, I want to learn to hear from You,” and He will teach us how to hear Him. He will change our lives with the sound of His voice.

HOPE: A MIND SET ON GOD

In some ways, hope is the easiest thing in the world to find. It can be like a large elephant standing in a small room—it is right there, all the time, fully visible because of who God is and His unchanging, ever-faithful, never-failing affection for His people. God is God; therefore, there is always hope.

But in other ways, hope can be difficult to find, because when we’re anxious, upset, or fearful, it isn’t easy to hear God’s voice. Peace is the great potting soil of revelation—of communing with God and hearing His truth. A mind set on God will recognize God, will hear God, and then can respond to Him. All of us are in a process of tuning, honing, and developing our ability to hear Him, and in this quest, all of us are going to succeed, because He wants us to hear His voice. He doesn’t speak to us because He has to; He speaks to us because He wants to. We just celebrated Easter—we know the price He paid to be with His children.

God knows right where you are in this on-going process of building a deep, abiding relationship with Him. He knows that you are still learning. He sees what you’re going through, and He treats you as His prize, not as His burden.

GOD HAS THE TIME

All too often, we allow the enemy to convince us that God doesn’t have the time or the inclination to put up with us and our shortcomings. We can start to think that hope is too elusive and hearing God is too hard, because He’s disappointed with us. We don’t give ourselves grace for where we are. We think He doesn’t take into consideration how each of us is still learning, and so we bypass verses like Psalm 103:13–14, not realizing how they apply to us:

As a father pities his children,

So the Lord pities those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame;

He remembers that we are dust.

Does that sound like a God who doesn’t understand? Does that sound like a God who is far away? Does that sound like there is no hope for you and your circumstances?

This month, remember that hope is not a small, frail, feather-light thing that would be easy for you to destroy. It is the elephant in the room—it is massive. It is weighty. Hearing God’s voice can change your world and even the bleakest of situations with hope.