I have begun to explore the process of turning my hope for a eternal life in heaven into an active trust. This trust is a process of daily validation that God's Word is actually true. I have begun to attack the nagging doubts that disturb my faith. I have been actively pursuing a deeper peace with God. This process leads to a faith that can be described as an active trust. This trust helps me to be faithful to my faith. This means that my walk with Christ is evermore crystal clear. And, that results in victory.
It seems to me that I recall a famous televangelist saying that Christians were losing hope in specific things for their future. That was a critical problem. Not only is the object of the hope lost when people do not pursue the goal of that hope, but there is also a vital process that ceases to function. That vital process is the daily walk in trust with the Holy Spirit. Failure to pursue hope by this walk of faith results in weakness of Christians' maintaining their faithfulness to the Lord. This would lead to depression and perhaps even falling away from relationship with the Savior.
I began to address this problem in my own life by going back to the testimonies of Peter and John in their epistles where they speak of their first hand experiences with Jesus Christ. I read the account of St Paul who had tried to destroy the church and who had become its great apostle to the non-Jews. I chose to believe their accounts.
It is interesting to hear that non-believers of all kinds, including athiests, and followers of other religions all seem to have their moments when they doubt their beliefs. In the case of agnostics, they they are found to doubt their doubts. But, these unfortunate souls have actually chosen to believe in the idea that they are the captains of their own soul, the masters of their own fate. There is plenty of evidence in God's creation to tell them otherwise. I have attended the funeral of one such person and have posted on this blog about watching the dead bury their dead. Their confusion and doubts easily bubbled to the surface of their persona and were voiced to one and all at that funeral.
In contrast, there is a calm assurance that comes from the annointed reading of God's Word There is a presence of the Holy Spirit Who gives a sense of relief from the world and a joy toward loving the Savior. These are all blessings with no sorrow added. These facts make it easy to tell others about what the Lord means to us.
If we will apply these steps to our daily walk with God, they are our straight pathway through crooked roads to the realization of our hope in God. We do have a right to rejoice. We have a solid basis for our hope. We have motivation to be faithful to the One Who prepares our place for us. It actually is "well with our soul."
