Soulful Sunday: Don't Get My Hopes Up

2 Kings 4: 15-16 (NLT)-  “Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms!”  “No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”

Have you ever been in a season like this?  You know, one where that desire of your heart hasn’t yet happened.  You have prayed for something, got your hopes up over and over again and yet for some reason,  what you are praying for hasn’t happened.  Maybe it is for a spouse, a job, or to have a child.  Maybe it is for a direction in life.  Maybe it is for that person to come to Christ.  You then resign yourself to the idea that what you desired isn’t going to happen.

But then God intervenes.  Perhaps it is a verse you read that encourages you.  Maybe it is a word from someone, telling you to keep the hope alive.  You go to church and the sermon speaks directly to you.  A song comes on the radio that speaks straight to your heart.  God is calling you to hope in Him again, just like God used Elisha to call hope into this woman’s life.  Instead of your reaction being filled with praise and joy though, your reaction is a lot more like the woman here.  She doesn’t want to be let down once again.  We then feel guilty because we feel like we shouldn’t have wavering trust in God.  We feel like our hope should be steadfast.

Don’t be hard on yourself.  I love these verses in the Bible because they are real; real emotion behind deferred dreams.  I think that if we gave ourselves grace to continue hoping, even during  moments of resignation or fear of the dream failing once again, we can move forward with God to the place He is calling us.