You are the only hope…throughout the world and far away upon the sea. (Psalm 65:5)

Hope. It sounds like a good place to unfold our chairs and rest our weary souls today—if only for a few beachlike moments! Hope, as with so many worthwhile things, takes some nurturing on our part. It can suffer from complaining, doubt, and neglecting to renew our minds to the truth of what God says. Hope can also get crowded out by circumstances that don’t improve as quickly as we’d like them to or believe they should. We’re human, impatient, and we like to see results. 

God knows that if hope is going to sustain us for the greater things He has in store for our lives, it’s going to need some strengthening. Some core work, if you will. In the process of battling through doubt, quieting our complaining, and going back to His Word to train our minds in truth, hope learns to thrive. And when hope thrives, there’s less that can bring us down. There aren’t as many trials that can keep us in bed all day. There are fewer storms that scare us and far more we can sail through with a smile on our face and joy in our spirit.

Hope is caring for ourselves enough to believe God stands at the frontline of every battle leading us to the win. Through Him, we win. We can do life bravely and boldly because He loves us beyond measure, beyond our mistakes, and beyond our weaknesses. 

Let’s care for the hope in our souls today by keeping our minds on Him and our focus on the truth. Before we know it, the hope we carry will be so tough to defeat we’ll begin to believe anything is possible—because with God, it is. 

(excerpt from The Beach is Calling: 90 Devotions for Rest and Relaxation)