April 12 – Prisoners of Hope

How very easily might we overlook the life-changing revelation contained in the words of Zechariah 9:11, 12.

What is it, what does it mean, to become a “prisoner of hope?” Those who are shackled to hope know precisely what it means, and like Paul, they would gladly see all those they love share the same “bondage,” but without chains and cuffs, wherever possible.

In simplest terms, those who belong to the God to Whom nothing is impossible, belong to hope. They can no more not hope than they can for very long not breathe. HE tells US that nothing is impossible for Him, and HE invites US to ask for all things, even whatever we “wish,” or desire. Such is His compliment to those in Whom He entrusts His own Spirit.

They, those who know Him by His own nature and power, will ever want what He wants, and they ever ask because He is ready to provide it, to accomplish what cannot be done, to give what cannot be obtained, to go before us into worlds unconquered, even within our own hearts.

Does He desire that we should dwell in peace . . . in light . . . in love . . . in joy . . . in hope? These He provides. We cannot lack them any longer than it takes to exchange fear or greed or envy or unbelief for those things that hope prefers.

If sometimes those who are His seem not to have all the THINGS that others have or covet to own, it is only because THINGS are so often mere baubles cased in bubbles, honors not worth achieving, glories not worth seeking and possessions more cumbersome than delightful.

Life itself is not to be compared with the possession of having lain it down in the confidence of the will of God. Prisoners of hope are always window shopping, always seeing those things that hope may possess, and always settling down to have them at any cost of hope. Incarcerated in the assurance of good and unfailing expectation of the good and pleasing and perfect will of God, many today are bound hand and foot, heart and soul, to hope, possessing a kingdom which will not pass away, the Cor Unum in which “hope in God” is a perpetual vow.


"Hope Lives Here"
photo by Kerry