Fix Your Hope

I’ve been enjoying the beautiful Washington DC weather this weekend. After what felt like endless rains came breezy sun-filled days. I didn’t realize it at first but like so many seasonal changes, I found myself once again responding to an invitation.

We’re in the middle of our Fall Cohort season at Unveiled. By God’s incredible grace, we are celebrating Cohort #4 and the many women who have now journeyed through this experience together.

I have found that after the rains, the sun comes. And both have become my sacred spaces.

I have grown to love rainy days at the Chapel.

In fact, on the 18-acres of beautiful grounds where the Cohort meets in this unexpected hidden oasis, I have found the rainy days here to be my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, sunny days at the Chapel are simply gorgeous. You can easily explore the trails, sit by the pond or hang out in the gazebo. It’s a beautiful respite place. (Or, truth be told, you can be like me and sit in your car with the windows down and enjoy the view. I’m one of those people who likes the outdoors, but don’t like the outdoors on me!).

Yet I run to the Chapel on rainy days. I want to hear the pitter patter of the rain on the rooftop. I love looking out at the storm from the shelter of the cabin Chapel. I watch the trees sway, the leaves fall – it’s as though I’m watching the wind.

And in the Chapel, in the middle of storms, it’s hard to miss that Jesus is the Lord of the Storm. It’s nearly impossible to escape the living metaphor I’m standing within. He is my shelter. I’m safe in every storm.

From this place, I get to enjoy the beauty of the storm. I get to watch the storm.

From the shelter of the Chapel, I am acutely aware that He is Lord of all. And I am definitively safe in his hands.

Untouched by the storm.
Unharmed by the storm.
Unhindered by the storm.

In fact from this place, the storm has become a place of beauty and refreshing. In some small way, I can imagine what it might be like to climb into the boat with Jesus in the middle of the storm.

I’m practicing.

Within the shelter of these chapel walls, I’m learning to fix my hope.

Those words leaped off of the page as I read them today. The Apostle Paul is giving Timothy some instructions for life. You can feel the urgency in Paul’s pleas to Timothy to heed his instruction as a caring father who wants the very best for his son.

He says: Timothy, don’t place your hope in things. Fix your hope on God. (1 Tim. 6:17)

It’s so easy to hope in the things we can see – our jobs, our homes, our families – but the walk of faith is a constant invitation to put our hope in what we cannot see. We are to place our hope, our trust, our lives in a God who is invisible and who often feels intangible.

We are compelled to believe that the reality we cannot see with our naked eyes, is the truest reality of all. The Invisible, Immortal, Eternal God is who he says he is. Emmanuel – God with us.

I’m learning to fix my hope.

Not just to “fix my hope” by way of where I place my trust, but to “fix” my hope by way of repairing what is broken.

Are there areas in our lives where we have placed our hope in anything other than the God who made us? In those places, we are invited to repair broken trust, to fix our hope on God again.

He is the Repairer of Broken Walls.
He is the Restorer of Streets to dwell in. (Isaiah 58:12)

We are invited to restore our worship of God alone. Anything that we place our hope in other than him has become an object of our worship, and we’re in need of the God who Repairs the Broken Walls.

We are in need of God’s restoration of our sacred dwelling places. Our attention that’s prone to dwell on things, rather than on him. Who will I become? What will I possess? How will I be seen by the world around me?

In these questions, we find out that we need a Savior who can rescue us from the smallness of me and mine, from the tyranny of our personal possessions. The One who will free us to be free indeed, to place all of our hope in Him.

In the shelter of the Chapel, in the place of the storm, I am learning that the One who governs the winds and the rains, is a trustworthy Dwelling Place.

And so I’m running.
To the Repairer of the Broken.
To the One who is able fix my hope.
To the Trustworthy One, I come.

Don’t become high and mighty or place all your hope on a gamble for riches; instead, fix your hope on God, the One who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. (1 Tim. 6:17)

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