If Dack only knew how much trouble I had getting that cup of hot coffee up those stairs! I was splashing it and thinking, “here I am in a movie star’s house and making a mess!” You go to bend over with a hot cup of coffee and as you go to wipe up one spot, you have another one! And I thought, “you’d better be really thirsty and drink this!”, but I didn’t tell him that part!
As I write this, I can’t help but wonder how many who read this have been at some point in their lives, faced with a most critical situation, be it sickness, or some seriously desperate situation, who today can look back and truly say that they are no longer in that predicament all because Jesus was moved with compassion toward them and set them free from such circumstance?
Well, if Jesus will do it for anyone, he will do it for YOU! I praise and thank God for every single time he has moved for you and if you do not know in your heart of hearts of a time when you know that you know, that you know, that God moved for YOU…I rejoice that you are, perhaps, for the very first time about to experience for your own self, Jesus, being moved with compassion for YOU.
In Lamentations 3:21-26:
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
He starts out saying, “this I recall to my mind”. Do you know that we need our memory blessed? We need to have a blessed memory. It’s funny because being with Dack and all the time we’ve spent together, he has a joke, that, he’s spent half of his life hunting his glasses, hunting his wallet, hunting his car keys, and etc. . Well, here’s one thing you cannot forget! You can afford to forget your glasses, or your wallet, but the one thing you and I cannot afford to forget is what he is going to tell us in this scripture. He said, “I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope”. In other words, I’ve got hope if I remember this!
Now keep in mind that the definition of the word hope when used in the bible is not the same as today’s general understood meaning of the word. For instance, I could say, “brother, a certain person who just received an inheritance is coming next week to give you a check in the amount of $20,000.00.” His response would probably be, “well, I hope so!” In today’s world among believers and non-believers alike, hope is understood to mean that there’s a great big fat chance that your highest expectation won’t happen, and a little-bitty teensy-weensy chance that it might.
I’m not going to set you up for a huge let-down. Thank God, bible hope and today’s usage of the word hope are not the same. A general definition for the word hope in the bible is: a confident expectation of good. We can take that literal and personal and say that it means a confident expectation of good happening to YOU! So with this in mind, we can read that verse by saying, “this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope [a confident expectation of good]. Hope [a confident expectation of good] will be mine if I will remember what he is about to tell me, and remind myself repeatedly so that I do not forget this. So just what is it that you and I must remember?