May You Pray for Hope Along the Way! Convo #4 in our annual "May You Pray" series

Need a little hope? We all do along life's way. What's more, people entrusted to us need hope, as well! So, as we continue our "May You Pray" prayer campaign, the next thing we want to pray for is hope!!! In this episode, let's talk about: "May You Pray for Hope Along the Way" as we consider the theme verse:  “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people” Ephesians 1:18 NIV

Thing is, we all need hope; we cannot live well without it. Hope is what keeps us going no matter what is happening in or around us. Hope is what helps us confidently pray and wait for God's answers to those prayers. Hope is what helps us rise above and look past the current crises in our lives. Throughout His Word, God calls us to hope in Him, and Paul prayed for his friends to be able to have this hope.

So, ready to ask God to turn the lights of hope on in your heart? Join in this podcast episode, then listen to what God wants to say directly to you through the corresponding conversation guide, "May You Pray for Hope Along the Way."

Be encouraged!!!

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The Family Disciple Me ministry exists to catalyze devotion driven discipleship in our homes and around the world. We believe that discipleship starts with a conversation, and FDM provides free, easily-accessible, biblical resources to encourage these meaningful conversations  along life's way. Sign up through our website to be "the first to know" about upcoming releases and resources (including the FDM App - coming soon!!!) You can also follow Family Disciple Me on social media. 

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Transcript

Pray for Hope Along the Way

Speaker 1 0:00

What have your eyes seen along the way this week? A few days ago, my daughter, anna-larie, and I well, we saw something very disturbing. We were sitting in a grocery store pickup parking spot when suddenly Anna-Larie said Mom, look. My eyes followed her gaze and I was horrified to see what she was seeing. It looked like a man was coming through the parking lot with a weapon in his hand, underneath his jacket. I sat there stunned for a moment. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I started praying aloud about what to do and then I picked up my phone and I called the grocery store and I got hold of the security team. I told them what we were seeing as the man strode toward the grocery store entrance. I'm assuming nothing happened because, well, I didn't hear anything about a mass shooting on the news, but it was a really, really scary thing to see.

Speaker 1 1:08

And it seems like every day things like this happen. Maybe not quite so dramatic, but it seems like every day. We see things we don't want to see. And I'm going to take a wild guess I'll bet that these days you are seeing things you don't want to see either. The reality is that we live in a world of brokenness. We live in a world of anxiety, of depression, of sadness, of fear of sin. We see these things played out in so many ways that sometimes it seems like every conversation I have, every one of these, has something to do with all these things that we are seeing in this day and age. There is definitely a lot of bad news, isn't there? There are so many things that we can focus our eyes on and that we can see and fixate on along the way. However, the good news is that God wants his people to see more than just what our physical eyes can see. God wants us to see with what scripture calls the eyes of your heart. When these eyes, our spiritual eyes, are opened, we'll be able to see more than the troubles, the problems, the issues, the fears all around us. We'll be able to see the hope that God has for us. Do you need a little of that? Or maybe you need a lot of hope today? I know I do so. Let's spend a few minutes having a conversation about this as we come to our next guide in our May you Pray series. Right now, let's talk about the theme May you Pray for Hope. Along the Way. I'm going to cue the intro, then we'll be right back to talk about what God has for us next in Ephesians, chapter one.

Speaker 1 3:13

Welcome to the Family Disciple Me podcast. Our goal is to catalyze devotion-driven discipleship in our own lives and relationships and then around the world. We do this through easily accessible biblical resources that help us meet with God and make Him known. We call this, seek Him, speak Him. You can find out more about this, our ministry and our resources at familydisciplemeorg. Hi, my name is Tasha Williams. I'm delighted to be on this journey with you, so let's spend this moment together seeking God in His Word about what he first has to say to us.

Speaker 1 3:58

It was indeed very troubling to see what looked like an armed gunman entering the grocery store the other day. Later that afternoon, I sat at a table with Anna-Larie, her younger sister, and some of her friends, and we talked about that incident. What surprised me was that each girl who sat around that table had her own story to share about what things her eyes had seen that very day, things that were perplexing and scary and disturbing to observe. However, the reality is, our eyes can see strange and difficult things like these, and yet we can still feel a little bit removed from the angst of it when these situations don't end up impacting our own lives. After all, anna-laurie and I saw that man who looked like he was carrying a weapon and yet we drove away from that parking lot after we called security. Whether something happened with that guy or not, we were removed from it.

Speaker 1 5:05

What is a thousand times harder is when our eyes see what's immediately in our own lives, and here's where it gets really personal. We see disastrous relationships. We see terrible illnesses. We see prodigals who are a million miles away from home. We see the struggles in our marriages. We see the challenges that are bombarding our kids. We see the difficulties and the suffering that our friends and loved ones are walking through as Christ followers. If we focus on just these things, then we will be as miserable and hopeless and full of anxiety and fear as everyone else around us. But the Lord wants the eyes of our hearts to see more, to see what he has in store for us, to see what he has planned for us, to see the hope he holds out to us.

Speaker 1 6:05

As we continue in our May you Pray conversation guides, we come to our next verse in Ephesians, chapter 1. As we considered in earlier podcasts, ephesians 1 is a prayer, and in fact the whole book of Ephesians contains many prayers. But today we come to a really special prayer found in Ephesians 1, verse 18. And it says this eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people. Now, I think that's a really incredible verse, and it's so incredible that it almost seems like it could have come from the pen of somebody who was experiencing a perfect, ideal life, somebody who had no problems, no struggles, didn't see any difficult things.

Speaker 1 7:05

And yet the reality is that when the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Ephesians well, he was in a Roman jail cell. I don't know much, but I do know that that was not a place that you wanted to be. Paul definitely saw things there that he did not want to see. It's because of that, I think, that we should really listen to his prayer even more closely, because somehow, someway in the midst of seeing what was surely the most deplorable, despicable things, paul was able to look beyond. He prayed for the Ephesians to experience some of what he must have surely experienced himself, or he wouldn't have even known about it.

Speaker 1 7:55

Paul prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened. He was, in effect, praying that God would turn the light switch on to enlighten them and help them to see more than what was right in front of them. I'll admit, sometimes that's all I see. I see the next thing, the next step, the next trouble, the next struggle, the next issue, the next problem, the next looming disaster and, honestly, most of this is usually some sort or part of my reality if it's what I see right in front of me. But Paul prayed that God's people would see more than that, that they would see more than what their physical eyes could see and that they could see with their spiritual eyes. Remember, in our last conversation in this series, we talked about God's gifts of wisdom and revelation to know Jesus better. Well, that wisdom and revelation also helps turn on the light switch, so to speak, for the eyes of our hearts to be enlightened. And what does God want to light up in the darkness of our world? Well, he wants the lights turned on in us so we can see the hope he has for us. As I consider all the pieces of my life, I know that I need hope. I need hope so that I can take my next steps. I need hope that I can keep going. I need hope that God is working a bigger picture than what I can see.

Speaker 1 9:34

What about you? Where do you need hope in your life? How do you need hope in your life? For whom are you needing hope in your life?

Speaker 1 9:44

Hope is so important. Every single one of us need it, from the youngest to the oldest, no matter what our age or stage. That's why, in this conversation, in our May you Pray series, we're focusing specifically on this theme. May you pray for hope along the way. Certainly, there are so many things to pray for, right, but I love how Paul, in this prayer, made hope a specific prayer request. He set an example for us. What's more, he didn't just set an example for us to look at. He describes the kind of eyes that we need to see it. So how about it? Do you need hope today, just like I do?

Speaker 1 10:33

Then I challenge you to pray for it, to ask God for hope, and then, with the eyes of your heart, may I encourage you to open up God's word and start looking for scripture verses about hope. There are so many beautiful passages of scripture about hope that God promises us. If you're not sure where to find these verses, well, just type hope, bible verses those three words, hope, bible verses into your internet browser and you'll be amazed by how many scripture references come up. Then, after God fills your heart with hope, after your spiritual eyes can see all that God has for you in that, then I encourage you to look around. Who needs hope in your life? Who needs hope in my life?

Speaker 1 11:27

We have this amazing opportunity to seek him and then turn around and speak him, and in this we can encourage our family, our friends, our roommates, our co-workers, our spouses, our whoever it is that God has entrusted to us. We can encourage them and pray for them to be able to see, with the eyes of their hearts, the hope that God has for them. We can specifically pray for them, like Paul prayed for his friends, that the eyes of their hearts, the hope that God has for them. We can specifically pray for them, like Paul prayed for his friends, that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened, that that light switch would turn on, so that they wouldn't just see with their physical eyes, but that they would be able to look beyond and see what God has for them in that, through that or even because of that, and then once we are able to encourage with hope those that God has immediately entrusted to us, well then we can ask him to show us whom else he wants us to encourage and pray for hope. Else he wants us to encourage and pray for hope.

Speaker 1 12:35

We can ask God to help us see with our spiritual eyes perhaps, people that we did not see before with just our physical eyes. You know, with the eyes of my heart I might see a friend whom I haven't physically seen in years, but I hear God's Spirit say send her a word of encouragement. Or with the eyes of my heart I may see a need somewhere else in the world, same place I've never been and never will go. But with the eyes of my heart, god tells me what that people, group or that person needs and what he wants me to do about it. When I use the eyes of my heart, I can look past a face and see someone else through Jesus' eyes. I can love them and care about them the way that he does, and I can hold out to them the hope that he offers. You know, when we ask God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts and then we see the hope he has for us, then it will well up within us to overflowing, so that we can do nothing else but share that with someone else.

Speaker 1 13:45

Oh goodness, there is so much here in this topic. We could just spend hours and hours on it. But as we close, let me just challenge you with this Spend some time with Jesus. Seek him in this scripture, ask him to show you what he wants you to know from his word on this topic. Seek him asking the questions what, why and how, and then turn around and speak him and share his word and what he's shown you with someone else. And then, as we close, I would love to pray this scripture over you as a blessing.

Speaker 1 14:25

Paul wrote in Romans 15, verse 13,. These words may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Oh friend, as God fills us, you and me, with overflowing hope, we can pour that out onto others' lives. May God give us the strength and the courage and the tenacity to lean into him in prayer, praying for hope along the way, and then, as he fills us with hope. May we be people of hope who pour that out on the lives of those God has placed around us. Yes, our eyes will still see things that we do not want to see. That's a fact in this broken world. Yet we can be people of hope as we pray for God to turn on the light switch for our spiritual eyes and to see with the eyes of our hearts. So now go with God, friend. May you pray for hope along the way. Be encouraged.