Where is YOUR hope??

I don't know why, but I do some of my deepest thinking in the shower! I call them my 'shower moments' (hmm, maybe that will be the title of the book I've always wanted to write someday?) ;)
This morning the word HOPE came to my mind and I couldn't shake it. I pondered the question "where IS my hope, I mean really, really....where is it?". We are tempted to answer "my hope is in heaven - that I will be there eternally with Jesus". True, we do have that hope if we are true believers!
But what about NOW. We have a NOW hope in Jesus! Think about the sacrifice He made for us on the cross. I can't imagine anything more horrific, tragic, painful, and awful than what He went through. We so often ask "how can God take this or that situation and use it for good?".
He took the most AWFUL thing that ever happened, and used it for good! The death of Jesus on the cross is worse than anything you or I will ever have to go through. And yet, God took that sacrifice and used it for His glory by redeeming US through it! Because of the unfathomable sacrifice of Jesus, we have access to God NOW and eternally! Now if that isn't proof that God works all things for good, I don't know what is.
Any trial we are going through, no matter how horrendous it seems....is something that God promises to use for His purposes, for His good, and for His glory. We can know He will do this because of what He did on the cross. That is something we can trust and not doubt! That is such hope!
Our hope NOW is that God will fulfill His promise to use everything, and that means EVERYTHING, for His glory. That's an amazing HOPE from an amazing God full of amazing GRACE!

ROMANS 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

AMEN!!