FIELD OF HOPE

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

We finally found it after the highway turned to two lanes that turned to one that turned to gravel and dirt as we meandered through the south eastern Ohio countryside.  What did we find?

The “FIELD of HOPE”.

Yes today it is an abandoned yet treasured old high school sitting at the base of a beautiful knoll. Yes today there are exposed cinder blocks and open windows, piles of discarded “insides” and a few pieces of dormant equipment.  Yes today there are just remnants of the football and baseball fields and the empty domed ceiling of a gym.

But it didn’t matter what it is now.

What mattered was the dream and HOPE of what it could be; what GOD could do with it.

For across the way in a country church was a group of passionate people who were praying and ready for what GOD had planned for that "FIELD of HOPE", for those vacant structures and those ENDLESS possibilities believing that:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Ephesians 3:20 (MSG)

And this group of passionate people included a once alcoholic senior Pastor and his socially conscience sweet wife, a retiree who just put down the glass & porn 24 months ago, a old salty law enforcement type, a community staple, a kind-hearted jokester and a social advocate with a smile that would light the darkest room.  And that was just a few of the band of brothers and sisters who have the vision of taking this empty field and its relics and through GOD TRANSFORM it into a place of HOPE for trafficked and addicted young women.

It is days like yesterday that inspire me.  I need days like yesterday to remind me.

I need the fresh faces of those eager to wade into the messes of others to re-ignite me and I need to CHEER them on and LEARN from them today!  We all do.

1 Thessalonians 5:11-12

…go on cheering and strengthening each other with thoughts like these…get to know those who work so hard among you. They are your spiritual leaders to keep you on the right path.

These folks are on the right path.  They helped keep me on the right path yesterday.

What these folks understood was that if you trust and HOPE in GOD to build a FIELD of HOPE, people, the hurting, will come.  

And it was that FAITH that had them excited. 

It was that faith and HOPE that had them tapping the endless imagination and vision of what GOD was going to do with them and through them to change lives all the way in Gallia County.

How about you today?  Are you excited about what GOD is doing in your world, with your relics?  

Do you need some CHEERING on?

Maybe you don’t have a big vision project in the works like a house for girls in peril.  Maybe all you have today is “another day”.  Maybe your vision is a little different; maybe it feels a little less daunting than a school conversion.  But it is your VISION for today and GOD is as deeply invested in your FIELD of HOPE today as he is in the vision of my new friends from VINTON.

So don’t you lose your HOPE today.  Allow the hope of these others to CHEER you on!

GOD is ready and excited to help you re-imagine some of your abandoned places or relationships.  GOD is ready to convert the rubble of the past into something new and beautiful too.

Isaiah 58:10-11(MSG)

I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—You’ll use the old rubble of (the) past to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past.

It is time to HOPE!

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better…” - Marden

I love you all.

Freedom Church