DO YOU FEEL LIKE A PRISONER?

Zechariah 9:11-12  As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.  Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. 

Instead of putting yourself in a prison cell filled with doubt and fear, worries and dread, anger and jealousy, how about putting yourself in a prison of hope?  "Oh if it would be that easy!"  I can hear the comments now.  "You have no idea what I've been through."  "How can you expect me to have hope when I was just handed divorce papers today?"  "Why should I have hope?  Nothing good ever happens to me."  "Hope?  Hope?  You want me to hope?  Are you serious?"  

I could probably fill this blog with comments just like these and worse.  I read them on Facebook, I hear them uttered out the mouth of believers and non believers alike.  Negative comments, pity parties, and those smiles turned upside down are rampant in this world today.  Listen to the news reports and the first 28 minutes is filled with doom and gloom.  Maybe, if we're lucky, the last 2 minutes will have some uplifting report about someones rescue.  

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling." The story of Chicken Little, while humorous, is a sad commentary on today's world.  People are just waiting for the sky to fall, the next nail in their coffin, the next shoe to drop.  Always expecting the worse and never being disappointed, is the motto of some people, even some believers.  Seriously?

What the heck is wrong here?  Have you not heard?  Do you not know?  Are you so locked in your own little world that you have lost your hope?   Are you so busy looking in the mirror at all your flaws, you don't even realize that there are people who don't have a mirror to look at let alone a home in which to hang a mirror?  Are you so consumed with envy and jealousy that you cannot see how fortunate you are?  Are you depressed because nothing goes the way you expect it or want it to be?  

  Listen, as believers we need to grab a hold of this verse and really tap into it's meaning.  We are set free!  We need to be prisoners of hope!  We should be the most joy filled, happy, peaceful people around!   Is life tough?  Yes, but we have been washed by the saving grace of Jesus Christ which means that we have the world at our fingertips.  We have a promise of double for our trouble.   I'm not talking just financially here.  

If we really are true believers, than we should have peace and stop worrying.  I know all you parents with teenagers are ready to pounce on me, but please let me explain.  I have 4 grown children who were once teenagers, 3 girls and 1 boy.  Yes, there were times I would worry until God would remind me that He had them in the palms of His hands.   To me that was comforting to me because truthfully I would not know a better set of hands for my children to be in.  I learned to trust in God and lean on Him during those teenager years especially and He never let me down.  I placed my hope for my children and their future in the hands of God.  Because of that I feel I received a double blessing from God through my children, because they are the best!!

I am a prisoner of hope!  My hope is in the Lord, not myself or anyone else.  I cling to Him, I run to Him.  I have confidence that He is always with me directing my steps.  And although I may get down on myself and begin to wander outside of my prison of hope, I quickly return, because He has given me many double blessings of peace and joy.  He has doubled my love through Jerry.  He has given me hope for a brighter and better tomorrow.  

You can have this hope to, but you must be willing to give up the doubt and fear, worries and dread, anger and jealousy.  Let's be cell mates together in the prison of hope.

May the hope to which we are called, invade your words, your thoughts and your heart today.  May your hope be in the Lord and may you find the hope that is available to you today, in Jesus name I pray, amen!