SoulFit: Waiting On God Without Losing Heart

We explore why biblical hope is more than crossed fingers and how to wait without quitting by anchoring to God’s character, promises, and community. We share tools to keep hope alive, from remembering past faithfulness to scheduling worry time and speaking truth.

• defining hope as confident trust in God’s character
• the weight of small burdens and why it feels heavy
• Romans 8:25 and patience for what we do not see
• Psalm 34 and Lamentations 3 reframing deliverance
• delay versus denial with Sarah and Job
• remembering past faithfulness to fuel today’s hope
• community over isolation using the fire log picture
• practical tool: scheduled worry time to limit anxiety
• speaking truth: God is still working

“Have a worry time, set it aside, write those down, and have a time that you can worry all you want and have a grand old time in your worriness. And then when you get done with that time, leave it.”

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome, SoulFit. Thank you for taking time to join us today. This is your first time we join in a live call each week as we discuss a different some scripture and different topic that we take and that we take how do we make that scripture applicable to real life? So again, thank you for joining us for SoulFit and let's join our live call. So we are on week three today, our series about waiting on God. Today we're going to talk about something we've kind of already we've we talked about a few weeks ago before we started the series, but I think it's an important thing that we talk about and go over again because I think sometimes we we have trouble with it. And it's really about holding on to hope and really what that looks like and how we can put that into practice. How can we hold on to that? And really, when we think of hope, I think a lot of times we think of hope as it's just wishful thinking. I hope to be wealthy, I hope to be skinny, I hope to be happy. And as we've talked about all those things before, how to be skinny, rich, and happy. But really, biblical hope isn't about wishful thinking, it's really about being confident that in all the things going on that God is still working, even when we don't see it. You know, and some seasons, some things we go through in life just aren't slow going. Sometimes, you know, endurance race is sometimes slow going. But sometimes it's just really heavy. Maybe, you know, watching the Olympics today and those cross-country skiers, it's a 10K, they're going six miles. But it's a hard, it's hard work because when they cross the finish line, they kind of collapse. I'm like, that was so much work. But when you see them coming to the finish line, they look like they are doing really good. And then cross the finish line, it's like, whew, that's over. It's done. It's like, it's just hard work. And sometimes we have those times where it's just really hard, even if it's short periods, sometimes it's just really hard. And sometimes those heavy things aren't just one thing. If we have a basket and we put an apple in there, is that gonna be heavy? If we put two apples, no. But eventually there's gonna be one apple that we put in there that makes it too heavy to handle. And sometimes we don't know what apple that's gonna be. It's kind of like when you the we hear the camel broke the straw that broke the camel's back. You you know, you which one is it? It's all those little things, and when you blow up and you think somebody says, Well, why'd you do that? It was just this little thing, but they don't know everything else you've been dealing with. So sometimes it's those heavy, those small things that make it heavy. And you know, sometimes when we have heavy, it looks like we don't have answers. Sometimes there's uncertainty. Sometimes the uncertainty is uh is heavy. Sometimes it's a relationship strain, maybe between spouses, between kids, between parents. I mean, it can be what are those relationship strain? Maybe it's health issues, maybe those things are heavy, maybe it's emotional fatigue that there's just one thing after another, one little thing is just you get tired. Maybe it's unmet expectations, things that aren't meeting what you expected it to be. And all of those things become really dangerous when we stop believing that God is involved in some way, that he's still involved. So, how do we go from hope as the world thinks about it? It's just wishful thinking, to talk about what's biblical hope. So, our world's hope is I hope it works out. Cross your fingers, maybe things will improve. And I think that's what sometimes what people tell us, right? When things maybe aren't going well, or we share it with them, they say, Well, I hope that works out for you. Well, cross your fingers, you'll make it. Well, maybe things will get better. I mean, that there's not a lot of confidence in that hope. And biblical hope is really about our confident expectation of that God is still involved. Biblical hope is anchored in God's character. Who is he? He is loving, he wants the best for us. And it's based on his promises, time and time again as we look through the Bible, it's time and time again about what he tells us. And in Romans 8 25, it says, For in this hope we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. So typically, think about that. It said, But hope that is seen is no hope at all. So do you ever hope for things that you see? Chances are probably no. You don't see those things. It's usually things you are wanting. Hope for relationships to be amended, for health issues to go away, to get better, for emotional fatigue to get better. Um, it's those things you currently don't see right now. So hope is in Romans 8.25, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Are we do we usually hope for things we already have? No, we already have them. We already have them. So we're we're hoping for those things that we do not yet have. And so it tells us at the end of 825, we wait for it patiently. So the biblical hope gives us strength to wait without quitting because we know when we look back on who is God, we look back on his promises, things he has told us from examples in the Bible time and time again. Like we we talked about Sarah last week. Again, he was faithful in that promise. But she wanted to, like we talked about last week, help along the process. And so it's really there to give us that strength without quitting. I can I can't imagine not having hope. Because I've thought about it before and I thought, well, what if I took out hope? Then think about that when you had things, and if you took out hope, what would be left? I mean, nothing. I mean, I don't think, I mean, it's like how depressing, and I think how I mean, I can, you know, if somebody doesn't have hope, there's darkness, there's I there's why go on, why keep going, why keep moving, let me just sit here and not do anything, or all the different things. So I can't imagine a hope, a life without hope. And there's so many times that it keeps me going because and it gives me strength that this the next thing I do, the you know, I'm still waiting patiently, but the next thing comes along could be the one. And and and so it we have to have hope to keep us from quitting. And then in Psalms 34, 17 through 18, it talks about the righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them, he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit. And he delivers us, and I think sometimes we think he delivers us from all of our troubles means we should have no troubles. They should all go away. But too, I think sometimes how we get delivered from our troubles is how we change our perspective, how we change our thought process about it. It's not, I think sometimes we get bogged down, and he's gonna take away this thing that is causing me trouble, he's gonna take it out. And sometimes I don't think sometimes that is the case. It goes away, it's solved, it's taken care of. But it's also sometimes about how we view it, how we look at it. And again, the last part of that, the last sentence of that verse in 18 is the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. I think sometimes, have you been crushed in spirit? Like my spirit is just kind of crushed. When really bad things happen, or when you add that one more little thing into the basket and it feels crushed. I'm like, this is it. I knew it. Even in those heavy times, he's there when we're crushed, he's close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And then in Laminations in 3, 22 through 24, it says, Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassion never fails. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for him. I will wait for him. So you know, he's not shaming that we have heaviness. We should, you know, we shouldn't feel that we shouldn't have heaviness. You know, I I I think sometimes we get heaviness as a gift from God. And so what does that mean? Like we said, do we hope for things that we already have? No. So I think sometimes he gives us those heaviness because he sometimes he wants a closer relationship with us, so he gives us that heaviness to to work on being patient, to have that hope, to uh rely on him for him for him to be able to show his love towards us. And and in that patiently waiting, or in that waiting, because sometimes we've talked about we're not real patient, and we want to try to help God out. But when we're patient, he's not he doesn't abandon us in the delay. And next week we're gonna talk about what he's doing while we're waiting. Um, we're gonna talk about that next week. You know, and and sometimes hope doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be expressed. Sometimes it's just simply knowing that God is still here. You know, when we when we look back at Job, we can easily say, how patient was Job. We always, I mean, we hear that all the time, have the patience of Job. He was, I mean, all the bad things happened to him, one after another, and you know, you know, killing all of his animals wasn't enough. And then, you know, all of his kids, that wasn't enough. So then inflicted pain on Job himself, and um, yet he still had hope. He still waited patiently because there was a bigger plan that God was was working with than what Job knew. So, you know, why do we lose hope? When does, you know, I don't think we necessarily lose it. I think sometimes it really fades. And sometimes you have to really listen in. Sometimes when a song fades out, you have to really listen in to see what it what it's doing. It fades when we measure God's faithfulness by his speed. He's not doing it quick quick enough, so may he not be faithful. We start comparing timelines. This person's doing getting answered prayers, and I'm not, and what's going on? You know, we isolate ourselves, we're not around people, we just take it in on ourselves. And how about this? Hope fades when we keep replaying the worst case scenario over and over again. And sometimes I think we mistaken delay for denial. Maybe it's just what did Sarah? Sarah might have thought, uh, this is denial that I'm never getting a child. It was just a delay that was needed. So delay doesn't mean absence, and silence doesn't mean abandonment. It just means sometimes be patient. So, what do we do? How do we strengthen our hope while we wait? What do we do while we're waiting? We're gonna talk about next week what God's doing while we're waiting, but what do we do while we're while we're waiting? Because we both have a part. And we have to remember past past faithfulness. Think back in your life, when has God been faithful? And it probably hasn't always been timely. There's probably been some times that it's been timely. My parents go on and on, and they tell me a lot of different things when God, his providence, how he's taken care of them over the years, and they're in their 80s. So they can look back of the years from being missionaries to starting a church to a Christian school to moving to Texas to going out to Bible Baptist Translators Institute, all the different providences, even the house I grew up in, how that came about, all the different things that he did time and time again that they rely on at this time in their lives, because of all those past things that they could go, yep, he was faithful there. Yep, he was faithful there, yep, he was faithful there. And in my own life, I look back and I say, even in some of the tragedies, and yes, he was faithful there. Yes, in the good times he was faithful. Yes, when I had questions, he was faithful. So we have to remember that past faithfulness in our lives. In Hebrews 10, 23 through 25, it says, Let us hold unwaveringly to the hope we profess. For he for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and on all the more as you see the day approaching. So when we talked about, don't isolate, get around people, be part of that community that can build you up and help you remember past faithfulness about what has happened in your life, how it has the timeline and the things that have mattered and when he kept showing up being faithful. And then we have to focus on today. We can't carry tomorrow in Matthew 6.34, and we've we've talked about this. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its. I I was listening to a podcast this morning, and Asleigh wrote a book about, I don't can't, I don't remember what the book was about, quite honestly, but it had a lot of great tactical things in it. And and she talked about worrying. And what and what do you usually, and I thought this was great. I'm gonna I'm gonna try it. What do you usually do with your worries? You usually keep it going on replay in your mind. She suggested to set a time aside during the day, 10 to 30 minutes, whatever you want, to write, have that be your worry time. So if you have a worry in your in your brain, say, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna write that down at this set time, and I'm and I'm gonna think about it. Or maybe you write it down ahead of time and you go, okay, my worry today is maybe my relationship. I'm gonna write that down, and then during my worry time, I'm gonna really worry all over it. And she says, what you'll see is happen is it's it's kind of like when you when you have a worry at night, is that the most important worry about the the biggest thing ever? And it could have, I mean, at night we get when we wake up and have a worry, doesn't it get all wild and crazy? And you think, I was just trying to decide if I was gonna eat a banana or not. And then you wake up and go, that was the craziest thing to worry about. And so she was suggesting that if you write that worry down and say, okay, I'm gonna save that for my worry time, at whatever time you say, and I'm gonna give it 10 minutes, I'm gonna give my worry time 10 minutes, and I'm gonna worry about all the things. So chances are when you get to that time, it's not gonna be as much of a worry as you thought. I mean, there's also studies that show when you write it down, guess what? You get to let it go. You don't have to carry it all day long with you. So it's it's a way of focusing on today's strength. We don't have to carry tomorrow. Write it down and then spend a little time and then go on. And set a limit. And I thought it's a great tool, and I'm I'm gonna try it each day and just spend 10 minutes, write those things down, ruminate over them, and and and see what happens. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm gonna try it out. And then stay connected because again, sometimes in those isolation moments, things magnify. Discouragement magnifies, hope grows in communities. Real quick, a real quick story that I heard this week. This this preacher and and this guy were talking, they were sitting by a fire, and the guy, the preacher pulled out a hot log, a little bitty log, and set it next to him. And that guy and him, they kept talking, they were talking about for about 45 minutes. And so then the preacher went to grab that little log that he pulled out, and the guy said, Oh, oh, be careful, preacher, that's hot. He said, No, it's it's been sitting out here for about 45 minutes, it's cold. And then he threw it back into the fire, and within a couple minutes, what happened? It it was hot again. So he's saying is in those environments, if we isolate, we get cold. But when we're in that space, we get really hot. We get really where where our community, our hope grows, the fire grows because we're in that. And then then encourage you to speak truth over yourself, replacing what if it never with God is still working. And when you're patiently waiting, that's kind of the challenge this week is to say, God is still working. And that is our hope. That is that is what we're hoping in. That's the biblical truth because we know he is still working, and hope is those things we do not see, and we are hoping for those, and and we know God is still working. And next week we're gonna talk about what is God doing while we're waiting and believing based on our faithfulness and our past that God is still working, and that over time we will see how that's working. And that's really just the challenge this week. And I encourage you, maybe try that worry, right? Have a worry time, set it aside, write those down, and have a time that you can worry all you want and have a grand old time in your worriness. And then when you get done with that time, leave it, leave it in your at your worry time and move on. So I think that's the biggest thing we can do this week while we're waiting is have that hope that God is still working. And yes, I understand that is easier said than done. But it also we continue that communication with God, telling how we're feeling, what our thoughts are, and we have that communication while we do, that means we still have some hope that it will work out. Um, again, doesn't mean it's always gonna work out in our way, but he is working for the good of all because he loves us, because that is his character. So we'll finish up in prayer, and then everybody can go on about their wonderful Friday or their fantastic Friday. So we'll we'll pray and then we'll be on our way. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for bringing us all together in this time as we look over your word and share with us our responsibility as we wait, as we so patiently wait to know that you are working in our lives and others' lives in the world around us. I mean, and we have that hope of things that we cannot see, but based on your word, we know it is true. And I just pray that each one of us have that hope and understanding that you are working in all things and to give us the strength, the understanding to wait patiently while you do your work. And I just ask that you uh bless each one of us as we go out about our day, about our weekend, and give us that strength. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank y'all, and thank you to each of you for joining us on this week's Soulfin. I'm so forward to seeing you next time right here on Soulfin.