There’s a passage of Scripture that reads:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!  His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.  I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!'” (Lamentations 3:22-24)

I like that it doesn’t read, “I will hope in my past success” or “I will hope in my talent” or “I will hope in other broken people.

It exclaims, I will hope in Him!

In his book Sandcastle Kings: Meeting Jesus in a Spiritually Bankrupt World, Rich Wilkerson, Jr. writes, “God is our hope, not people.  People will fail us, reject us, or betray us.  And when they do, the consequences can be devastating – emotionally, relationally, spiritually.  People are amazing, but they make terrible gods.”

Did you catch that last part?  We make terrible gods for each other.

When we, like the author of the verses above, place our ultimate hope in God instead of each other, however, an amazing plot twist happens:  though storms may come (and they will), we won’t be left alone to fend for ourselves.

When loss, betrayal, pain, fear, hardship, and doubt surround us (and they will), we can cast our anchors upward to the One who promises to fully and perfectly restore, protect, heal, calm, sustain, and affirm us.

I don’t know how seriously you’re in need of hope right now, but I believe that God’s got the only version of it that can endure anything.

I also believe that, because of God’s willingness to be broken for me, I've never been alone in my brokenness.

You've never been alone in your brokenness, either.

My friend Matt underscores this beautifully and powerfully in his book Finding God in the Ruins“…your story could do a swan dive right in the hearts of the unredeemed, illuminating their darkness, promising them hope, and changing their story by helping them find God in the ruins.”

Isn’t that awesome?

You and I get to help God deliver new mercy and love to a lost and lonely world every day.

I want to get in on that.  How about you?

-Ryan