August 18, 2019, I held back tears the best that I possibly could during my final Sunday morning at a church that I had loved with my whole heart, and with a group of people that had become my family. I knew that God had called us to do something hard. It would require us to abandon the people that we were leading and move on to something new. 

I was so torn. I regretted my decision to resign. I regretted my decision to do something different. I wanted to continue to lead. I wanted to continue to preach. I wanted to continue to do what I loved and to be paid for it. I mean, what a gig! I loved the people at our church so much and I genuinely loved the teenagers and kids that I had been given the opportunity to pastor for the previous three years. 

But I also wanted to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to obey the call of God. I wanted the benefits that came with that obedience. 

My friends asked me if I was excited about the new journey as I said my goodbyes, but all I could do was shake my head and, once again, fight back tears. 

I did not want to leave. But, I knew that I needed to leave. I think it’s even possible that if my husband wasn’t already out at our new church and was actually still with me, I may not have actually left. That’s how badly I didn’t want to go. But I had to get going because my other half was already there. If for no other reason–I wanted to be reunited with him. And it had nothing to do with me being a scaredy-cat and that I hated being alone at night!

I had so many worries. And, while I packed and cleaned up the parsonage, or Bartsonage, as we called it, so many fears surfaced.

What would I do in the coming months? Would I even fit in at our new church? Would I be accepted? Would I be valued? Would I be seen and heard? OR, would I just be another face in the crowd? Where would I work? Would I find work that would fulfill me in the same way that ministry had fulfilled me?

When I got to our new home, I cried for days. Literally. 

I was in a brand-new city, and suddenly I had all of this extra time on my hands. My husband would leave for work and I would find myself all alone from the start of the day until dinner time, or sometimes even later. I was separated from my people, and all alone. I was physically closer to my family but that seemed like a moot point because of my husband’s busy work schedule. It made it almost impossible to see the family that I had longed to be near. 

It wasn’t long before my life turned into a lonely, hopeless mess. I needed to find hope. And, I knew from previous experiences that, I needed to find hope to survive.

I went from working with my husband every day, sharing an office, and doing ministry together, to seeing him maybe a couple of hours during most evenings. We never had time together anymore. He was always busy. It was the quickest whiplash that I think I’ve ever encountered. 

I grumbled, and I complained. I desperately needed a breakthrough. I needed something to cling to, and the worst part was that I KNEW what the answer was. 

I KNEW I needed to surrender my emotions and my hopes and my dreams to Jesus. After all, He is the one who led us out. He is the one we have always followed, in every instance. He has always supplied what we needed in our time of need. He is our hope. I knew what I needed. I just struggled to let go, and trust Him.

I needed to hope again. Desperately. And, I needed that hope in my life, FRESH, EVERY DAY. I needed it on good days and I needed it when life was hard. 

Side note: I don’t know why it’s so easy for me to find hope in certain areas of my life and so extremely challenging to find the same hope in other areas of my life. But it is. 

I needed that Ephesians 1:18 type of hope. I needed my heart to be flooded with light. A light that so illuminates the path ahead of me because darkness had begun to close in around me so very quickly. 

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

Ephesians 1:18 NLT

When God delivered the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh, they saw God do wild and intense things. They saw His faithfulness and his protection firsthand. But they had forgotten everything they saw and had become so depleted of any amount of joy and hope they previously had. They were desperate for hope. 

The Israelites came to a wilderness, and they grumbled and complained, and the Lord showed mercy and provided water miraculously. And then once more, in their traveling, they came to a wilderness again, where they grumbled and yep, you guessed it, complained again. 

They became so frustrated that at one point, they actually began making the worst types of groans and complaining. They began saying that they wished they had DIED instead of leaving captivity in the first place.

Their hope tank wasn’t just empty, it was gone!

Talk about a bad day! I mean, this is serious! These people are in desperate need of some sort of hope. They can’t even fathom finding the land that God had promised them. Their hopes were down, and they had succumbed to their own personal defeat. 

I can so relate to the Israelites. I’d be lying if I told you that I hadn’t made similar complaints in my life. God, if this is what you were going to deliver me into, then I wish I could have just stayed back in captivity!

They were tired. They had been wandering for a couple of months by now, and they had forgotten the promises of God. The Israelites had been so caught up in their grumbling and their complaining that they had forgotten all that God had done in their lives.

They weren’t eating much, and their sugar had begun dropping. These poor people needed a Snickers and they needed it in the worst way! Their emotions were running rampant! 

Ok, in all seriousness though, they were at an all-time low and they needed God to show up in their present situation. They needed another wilderness miracle. 

Let’s look at this together:

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?”

Exodus 16:4-7 NIV

Essentially what God says is, it’s come to my attention that you have forgotten the things that I’ve done for you. So, I’m going to show you one more time that you can trust me. In the evening you will have food, and in the morning, when you wake up, you will have food. I will provide what you need to live, and in me will you find hope. You will find it fresh every day. 

In the mornings, the Israelites find manna as the dew settles on the ground. And the instructions they had been given were that the manna shouldn’t be hoarded. They were to take what they needed for the day and trust that God would renew their provision the next day. He had provided everything they would need, and it would serve as a reminder of God’s faithfulness and they would learn to trust Him every day.

It’s easy to lose focus. It’s easy to see our problems and stay hopeless. But, can I be super honest? It’s hard to walk in faith. 

But, all you need to see is Jesus and then trust Him. Sounds simple, right?

God provided manna when the Israelites were in need. And I want to make something clear here. God’s faithfulness to provide what the Israelites needed was not dependent upon anything they did or could do. 

It wasn’t like they had to go through a checklist to please God to receive his provision. Their time in the wilderness is marked over and over by disobedience. And yet, even in the middle of their disobedience, God continues to provide.

Here’s what I’m trying to say; regardless of where you are in life. Regardless of whether you feel like you’re right in the middle of God’s plan, or you feel like you’ve screwed up and you’re just wandering aimlessly, God is still faithful to provide fresh manna. He is faithful to provide a fresh word. You can have a fresh outpouring of hope. There is hope for today. 

I want you to reread this last sentence again and say it out loud as if you believe it.

There is hope for today.

I want you to know that I’m praying for you, friend. I’m praying that today you would experience that Ephesians 1:18 type of hope that I mentioned earlier. That God would flood your heart with light; a light that so illuminates the path ahead of you so that you can understand confident hope! 

There is hope for today!