A Door of Hope

And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. Hosea 2:15a ESV

Troubles have marked mankind’s journey since Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. This Lord’s message of hope through the prophet Hosea found here in Hosea 2:15 burns brightly into our valley of trouble, suggesting that what is painful and difficult in our life may be a Divine door leading to the richly blessed life of deeper friendship with Jesus.

In Joshua 7, after the capture of Jericho by Joshua, the people of Israel experienced painful defeat. A man named Achan had made the decision to steal from God, bringing a heap of trouble upon Israel. This place became known as the Valley of Achor, which means “trouble”. This very valley of trouble is what the Lord transforms into a door of hope (see Hosea 2:15)!

Cancer labeled as “incurable” came as a heap of trouble to the door of my darkened hospital room ten years ago. As I have traveled the valley season with the presence of my LORD, what once was trouble has been a transforming tool in the Hand of my Potter. He has been gently chiseling away at my tendencies to seek control over my circumstances. He does this by simply removing any possibility of me solving them on my own. Instead, I have watched Him provide creatively and consistently for the mountains I have faced over the years. Mountains much bigger than my capacity to move. But they have moved me to my knees.

Jesus is our campfire of hope that shines brightly into our valley of trouble, even when the miles in the valley seem to stretch on ahead. We can draw near to Him and He will draw near to us (see James 4:8). As we commune with Him, our valley of trouble begins to be transformed by the powerful practices of gratitude and surrender.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Psalm 95:3-7a ESV

Knowing the LORD sits enthroned above all circumstances, we can envision our mountain in the palm of His Hand as we kneel down to worship Him. Often, as we are before the LORD with open hands in a position of surrender, His Holy Spirit begins to show us the blessings that have come, not in spite of the valley, but because of the valley. Perhaps these blessings include new friendships, new ministries, and new perspectives. Maybe it is a deepening of our awareness of who God is as our Father, and the growth of our capacity to trust Him with the mountains He allows us to face.

Maybe these mountains have been His gift, meant to move us away from a path that He knew would be harmful to us in some way. Perhaps He wanted to grant us the opportunity to see Him lay the mountain flat right before our eyes! Or…He wanted to strengthen our spiritual muscles by helping us climb the mountain step by step, experiencing His grace that is always sufficient for the path He chooses. In our times of surrender, we may begin to see that His “no” answer to our prayer was really His “yes” to our deepest desire to become more like Jesus.

Along with surrender, another tool for traveling the valley of trouble is gratitude. Bringing the sacrifice of praise places spiritual glasses on our faces. Anchored in thanksgiving, we look through these glasses to see our mountains as doors of hope rather than brick walls of despair. I recently heard Pastor David Jeremiah say that when we are walking in the midst of trouble, we should be contagiously thankful!

In October of 2013, a dear friend gave me a book to read that encouraged the discipline of writing down three things each day that I was grateful for. Little did I know that four short weeks later I would be hospitalized from cancer. Jesus had armed me for the spiritual battle coming before the first shot was fired! Thank you Jesus!

As I was hospitalized that holiday season of 2013, gratitude was a weapon I needed! I remember stubbornly writing down my blessings from my hospital bed, three each day. I reached the goal of 1,000 gifts within that first year of my cancer journey but quickly learned that I needed to continue this joy building habit for all my days.

My little notebooks of recorded blessings often lift my eyes from troubling circumstances onto our sufficient Savior. Now as I celebrate the gift of ten years since diagnosis, I am at 11,000 gifts! Behold, this is our God!

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Psalm 150:2 NLT

Our valleys of trouble may be His loving invitation to come closer, reminding us of His promised presence in our trials (see Psalm 91:15 ESV). No longer is there a brick wall of despair ahead, but glorious light! We become His agents of hope, passing to others the comfort that we ourselves have received. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 ESV).

Hosea preached this message of renewing hope shining into the darkness and troubles we face. This Christmas, we have a chance to reflect on baby Jesus entering our world as a door of Hope. Because of Jesus, we are not crushed under the weight of sin, sorrow, and despair. Jesus came as a baby, to live the perfect, sinless life we could never live. To die on the cross and rise again, giving all of us the chance to accept the free gift of salvation and spend eternity trouble free! Jesus not only came to bring hope, but He is hope... hope that does not disappoint.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:1-5 ESV

The mountains on your mind today? May they be flattened by His sufficient grace in whatever way He chooses! Perhaps He shrinks the circumstance to a height that we can walk over. Or He grows His grace within us to carry us over the Mt. Everest we face. Perhaps these troubles that move us closer to Jesus are the very pathway to hope. Walking with His Spirit, in thankfulness and trust, we will experience His grace that transforms our place of trouble into a door of hope.