More Room For Your Hope

We talked about freeing our hearts up a little to make more room for the hope that God wants to give us.  I like the analogy that our hearts are like gardens, where living things thrive:
     
     Isaiah 58:11 ..."and thou shalt be like a watered garden..."    KJV

     Isaiah 61:3 ..."the planting of the LORD..."    KJV

The Lord wants to plant where He knows He will get a return on His investment, on His deposits of divine hope; the return He wants is our attention, our hearts.

 Your ideal garden may not look like mine - your heart doesn't look like mine.  The "planting of the Lord" above in Isaiah 61 is specifically talking about how God can make a hopeless life become like an awe-inspiring forest of strong, towering trees that stir anyone who visits that forest to glorify God.  Now that's a garden!  Your heart in this analogy may look like a meticulously pruned topiary garden or a vista of busy daisies in a wild field, bobbing their heads in the afternoon breeze.  Your heart may joy in the rolling view of islands of Queen Anne's lace and bachelor's buttons clinging to the heels of the Blue Ridge; what about standing in one of God's lichen covered rock gardens high atop Cloud Peak?

Don't try to plant your hopes in someone else's garden.  After nine years of working in a ministry under some really talented and anointed people, I was told by one of the leaders, "You have lost your vision."  I translated that as, I have lost my hope!  These were very strong and charismatic personalities whose "gardens" had overtaken my own and I had allowed it, like kudzu (if you're from the South you know what I'm talking about) covering an entire hillside, becoming a dense canopy over everything that was originally visible.

I had to find the hopes that the Lord had spent years cultivating into my heart as I made room through exchanging my stuff for His. God has specific hopes to plant in each one of us.  I had to allow Him to help me regain the vision of my God-given original hopes - He helps us get down to the bedrock foundation in cases like this. 

A young man told my husband, Terry, and I about how he had lost everything and almost had a breakdown; he was really suffering financially, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.  He blasted out question after question to God:  "Why, God, why?"
...until he was on the ground and he realized he still had his foundation.  He still had hope of something to build upon or to re-build upon.  He had/has the living foundation of the hope that God will bring him to a place of stability and contentment.

That young man realized that he couldn't rebuild on a foundation using the plumb line of self!

Wow, that conversation was a spark of hope!