Owned

 "Return to your fortress O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you." Zechariah 9:12....."With an infinite God of infinite wealth, hope never ends in disappointment." Chris Tiegreen

Recently I was involved in a discussion about things that "owned" us in our spiritual walk. These are things, people, attitudes, that sap our energy, draw us away from Him, and in effect, hold us in bondage, which is another word for slavery. When I came across the above verse from Zechariah, I began to wonder what it would mean to us if we were owned by His hope? What would it mean to you?

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans that the hope He gives us will not disappoint. God Himself spoke to His people through the prophet Zechariah that they were to be prisoners to such hope, that He would be their fortress. A fortress where His peace reigns, and where fear, anxiety, and every other assault from the pit of darkness cannot reach us. Yet hope is in short supply these days. People seem resigned to a life lived out on the edge of discouragement and despair, or right in the midst of it. That's understandable in the world, it's unthinkable in His people. We allow ourselves to be prisoners to so many things. Could we dare to enter into a life of being prisoners of His hope? To be held "captive" by His hope?

What would such a life look like? To me, it means that darkness, no matter how deep it is around us, can never prevent His light from bursting through. Prisoners of hope live in such expectation. It would mean that the most dire circumstances cannot prevent His stepping into them and bringing about His deliverance. It would mean that the greatest challenges we face, in life, in relationships, in ministry, in our journey, are not, individually or together, able to keep us from His purposes for us. It would mean that His hope, as Paul promises, will not disappoint us...not ever.

The key in our hope is not that we base it upon what we wish Him to do for us, but that our hope is in Him. Such hope has surrendered all to Him, expectations, desires, outcomes, and trusts that He will do not just what is right, but what is best. It may not seem so at the time, but all who have lived in this state can look back and know that it was and is so. I can personally attest to the truth of this.

Few of us are willing to come to a place where our only hope is Him. I certainly wasn't, yet that is where I found myself. I, like Jacob, could exclaim, "Everything is against me!" Yet I held, weakly for sure, to the promise that He was for me, and so in the midst of devastation, I believed that He would rebuild my life. He did. Not according to the way I thought or expected, but I can testify now, looking back, that what He did was right and it was best.

To be a prisoner of hope, His hope, is to live in a freedom this world knows nothing about. It is living a life held in the grip of hope. His hope. Hope that will not disappoint. He invites us to enter into that hope. To be owned by it. Do we come?

Blessings,

Pastor O