What Does Quarried Stone Have to do With Hope?

As disease progresses in your body, the temptation to lose hope that we will ever see better days becomes greater and greater. We desperately want to be healed but the hope for this begins to ebb away like the tide going out, as days and weeks turn to months and years. The Bible says that "hope deferred makes the heart sick."

What precisely is hope? Noah Webster says (in his 1828 dictionary) that it is "to cherish a desire of good with some expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable." It's not the same as a wish.

If we break down the idea of hope we find that it's substance is faith ("Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). So when we hope for healing it means that we desire what cannot at the moment be seen, but despite this we entertain some expectation of possiby receiving this miraculous gift. When it doesn't come we become heartsick. So how do we avoid the painful and dreadful loss of hope?

At one point in my life, I experienced the final death of the hope for healing. I asked God to let me die and bring me home to be with Him. There was no drama - just a sincere request for death. I couldn't imagine living any longer with nothing to live for.

Isaiah 49:23b says, "Those who hope in Me will not be disappointed."

So, here is the answer: we are to hope in the giver of good gifts - the One who CAN heal. Yes we still want freedom from disease, but hope within the context of the God who has the knowledge and power to give it. And we do that by looking back in our own lives and also in the history of His relationship with His people to see how He has made promises and fulfilled them. Then we are encouraged and strengthened to wait but a little longer.

Isaiah 51:1-5 says "Listen to me you...who seek the Lord; Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one, and I blessed him and made him many. The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins (the ruins of PD); He will make her deserts like Eden(the deserts of PD), her wastelands (the wastelands of PD) like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.... My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way and my arm will bring justice...."

Here is our promise for healing!!! God is speaking DIRECTLY to you who belong to Him! He says to you who seek the Lord (and His healing). Don't look to technology or research or the medical community for your healing (though many times He will use those things to heal) but look to He who makes promises to His people and then in the midst of impossibilites does wonders. For many long years after God promised a child to Abraham and Sarah, they waited, seemingly barren. But Isaac was born to them in their old age - when for "man" - it was not possible. God fulfilled His promise to them, and He will fulfill His promise to His children - IN HIS OWN TIME. Wait on God you who are heartsick and weary.

"COME TO ME, ALL YOU WHO ARE WEARY AND BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST." Matt. 11:28