Hope Lesson

Well hey, Forever Family, I'm a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. I struggle with drugs and alcohol and perfectionism. My name is Rodney. It's so good to be here with you today. Today we're talking about hope, and there's a central thought that I want you to hold on to, and it's this, that hope reminds me that recovery is not an anchor, it's a pair of wings. Recovery is not an anchor, it's a pair of wings. And so sometimes when I look at hope, sometimes I get into this place of wishful thinking. You know, I had these dreams that seemed to be painted with disappointment, shattered dreams, shattered hope. It feels like our foundation trembles and crumbles in this place, doesn't it? Can you relate to that? I know I can, when it feels like everything is falling apart. And the problem is, it's not as much that God doesn't give us what we hope for. And hope is knowing with certainty that God is going to be with us. It doesn't mean that all our problems are solved and the pain goes away, but He becomes our source as we face the hurts, the hangups, and habits in our lives. So it's not that He doesn't give us what we hope for, it's that we don't know the right thing to hope for and to place our hope. Am I in wishful thinking or am I in a place of hope knowing that Jesus is the source of that? I love life change stories. I know you probably do too. They become that oxygen for us in this space. And it's cool to think about the imagery of a butterfly. A butterfly starts out as a caterpillar. And thinking about us as believers, believers don't crawl. We aren't designed to crawl. We're designed under God's power, not ours.

Please be clear on that. We're designed to fly under God's power. And you think about a caterpillar, a caterpillar crawls into this space. You could say like we do crawl into the recovery space through our pain, our shattered dreams, our shattered hopes, etc. So we crawl into the cocoon and in that space we die to the old self. And the beautiful thing is the story doesn't end there. Just like when Jesus went to the grave, it didn't end there. The old dies and then a new thing is created and is tempted to come back to this place of our crawling days. Why? Because I think for me, it feels tempting because it feels like there's a sense of control in that space. Can you relate to that? This being in control of my recovery. But it doesn't change, it doesn't change the reality that we have been made a butterfly. But we can lose our ability to fly. When we go back to those old caterpillar, and I'm not trying to be hard on caterpillars, but the analogy holds true. When we go back to the caterpillar way of living, when we are designed to fly, we lose our ability to fly. We go away from God and we try to find our own strategies. And so the enemy kind of feeds us with this narrative, you've been missing out. You need to go back to this. But it doesn't change, I want you to hold on to this, it doesn't change who we are. Even if we've lost the ability to fly, we're still a butterfly. God has created this new in us, and if we don't know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, that's a pretty big shift. We need Him living inside of our heart. But when we know as believers He lives in us, though our choices may have taken us out

of the ability to fly, it doesn't change who we are. That's why it's so important in our identity that our identity's in Christ, but we can be honest about what we struggle with. But we lose our ability to fly, we kind of fold in our wings and go, I can't fly anymore because I'm still living the old caterpillar life. Listen to this scripture, and I want you to think through the Holy Spirit, He gives us wings. We don't have to do it under our own power anymore, where we white-knuckle through that. Listen to this in Romans 12, 1-2. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, remember why we have this power in us, because of what Jesus did on the cross, and He gave us mercy and grace. In view of that mercy, it says, to offer, I urge you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the patterns of the world, to the old caterpillar way of living, so to speak. paraphrasing, but be transformed. There's that word, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. It's more than just changing our thinking. It's more than just changing our behavior. It's more than just stop doing this and start doing this. It's leaning into the good reasons why we keep going back to that caterpillar life. The hope is knowing that we don't have to live. We were designed for something new and different, and God wants to do something in our life. That's why we talk about facing our hurts.

As you think about the cycle, the events of our life can be part of those deterrents that take us to this place of avoiding hurts, but we experience hurt. But instead of facing the hurt, we try to hide from it. In the effort of running from our hurts, we stay in these negative core beliefs, kind of get hung up in this place of how I see myself, how I see God, and how I see others, which take us into the habit, or you could say defenses, or protections, the way we try to keep ourself alive in our own power, the white-knuckling caterpillar life, which doesn't give us the ability to fly. We believe we can fly with this white-knuckling, but it never happens, and so we get discouraged, and so we go searching for more, and we need more, and more, and nothing satisfies that. And ultimately, it creates finishing that cycle out. It finishes the cycle of causing pain on the others in our life. And so, we're in principle two. In principle two is earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover. Happier those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. We're mourning after, in Matthew 5, 4, mourning after the old caterpillar life, the old ways that we used to live our life as caterpillars, when God created us to be something new and different, better, where we could be given a pair of wings, not an anchor that keeps us grounded in recovery,

but a pair of wings to fly, and pursue new and different things the way God designed. So, it doesn't feel like we're white-knuckling our way through life, and buying into that definition that recovery is just staying kind of rooted in one spot. No, God created us to go to new, better places. And so, it's so important to highlight principle one. We have to realize our life is unmanageable. There is a God, and we're not it. And I need to acknowledge that in that space. That's admitting the need and getting help. And when I do that, I move into the getting help stage of principle two. I matter. No matter what I've done, nothing will separate me from the love of God. He wants to transform me, and therefore I can seek Him, because He's got the power to help me recover. He exists, I matter to Him, and He has the power. That's a big shift in our thinking. That's hope with certainty, that God is gonna meet me in this place. So, hope is knowing that I don't have to crawl, but can fly under His power. Remember, it's not our power. That's the old white-knuckling way. We can fly under His power in our marriage, in our parenting, in our addictions, in our compulsive behaviors. Whatever it is, God can help us fly

because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. So, just put that on for a minute, earnestly. Earnestly, it's like leaning in and almost putting this hope on as a blanket. Do you earnestly believe that God exists? Do you earnestly believe that you matter to Him? Do you earnestly believe that He has the power to help you? And let me be honest, we have good reasons not to trust this. Maybe we've been hurt by people in our life, and we think, well, why would I trust God, right? God is different from man. He's different from my dads, my multiple stepfathers. I can trust Him. Do I earnestly believe? This is so monumental and key to being able to go to that next step, that next principle to turn everything over to Him. If I don't believe He exists, I don't believe I matter to Him in a new way in spite of what I've done, and then I don't believe that He has the power, why would I ever turn my life and my will over to His care and control? So, it's so important to know we have a Father who loves us, who says we matter. And I wanna give you a couple scriptures before we jump into the acrostic. In Isaiah 54 10, just reminders of our mattering to Him. Even if the mountains walk away, Isaiah says,

and the hills fall to pieces, my love won't walk away from you. Take that in, put that on. My covenant commitment of peace won't fall apart. The God who has compassion on you says so. Listen to Deuteronomy 31 8, the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. We have a God who's not only accessible, he's responsive to us in our pain, he's engaged with us in the process. He loves you, and he's powerful enough, and he loves you enough, you matter enough to him. It's in him that he wants to walk through this with us. So previous lesson we talked about denial, we talked about being powerless, and all those serenity robbers, and how denial robs us, and it denotes our feelings, and energy's lost, and negates growth, and all that stuff, and all those serenity robbers that include our pride, now we're coming to this place of saying, God, I earnestly believe. And so what does hope look like when we earnestly believe? When we earnestly believe that he exists, we earnestly believe that we matter, and we earnestly believe that he has the power. It's got to start with acknowledging our higher power. Romans 11 6 says this, everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by his power. New life on the inside takes a while to match up with the outward effects of the caterpillar way of living, doesn't it? It takes a while. We didn't get here overnight, and it's not going to happen overnight to get back to this using the wings that God has given us through the Holy Spirit. There's things that are weighing us down, and that's the part that he, in his power, because we matter to him, being God-loving, caring, shepherding God that he is, will help

us to face this one hurt at a time. Listen to Max Lakedo, I love what he's talking about with hope. He says, hope is not a granted wish, wishful thinking. I wish it would snow today. No, it's not a granted wish or a favor performed. No, it's far greater than that. It's a zany, unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and then be there in the flesh to see our reaction. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, well, my grace, God says this, my grace is enough for you. For where there is weakness, my power is shown more completely. So in my weakness, knowing I matter to him and he has the power, we are actually made stronger and we begin the transformation process when we lift it up to him and say, Lord, here is the stuff. Begin the transformation process. I've made a decision. I'm going to trust you with the process. My higher power is going to be key to living out hope in Jesus Christ. But so we know he's given us his grace. We know he's given us power. We know we matter to him. But then there is a posture in walking in a place of hope in this new butterfly life is to understand I have to have an openness to change. If I'm not open to change, this isn't going to happen, right? I need to know that he's given me a pair of wings here, and I need to trust him with that. We have each other, and that's the beauty of bringing others into our pain. And even being honest about the emotions, you know, there's a Latin word for emotion called modus, and it literally comes from the word motivation, and it's to move us forward. Openness to change is about being honest about where I am and what I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing in the lives I'm believing, and allowing him to move us forward through that expression of emotions.

Ephesians 4.23 challenges us with this. Now your attitudes and thoughts must be constantly changing for the better. You must be a new and different person. Now hear me clearly. Remember the old white-knuckle caterpillar life? The new and different person doesn't happen under our power. I've got to give it to him and allow his power to work through me, and that's the key to the P in our acrostic. It's his power. It's not my power. It's his power. That's a daily, moment-by-moment, day-by-day process. My past experience told me that we wanted to, but we just couldn't do it. We couldn't do it under our own power, but he begins to work through us and gives us the motivation as we get open through his power to change. Philippians 4.13 confirms that for us. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. See, if we keep those hurts exposed to the light, even when it hurts, God brings healing to that. That light, that revealing, and bringing that out in the open brings a new experience for us. It brings hope, and we begin to move away from, in the transformers, the transformers We've been transformed as believers, new believers, and yet He's transforming. We've been renewed, and yet He is renewing, and through His power, we begin to fly the way He intended for us to do. It's like He gives us a new pair of glasses. We begin to look at the world differently. How I pursue life, how I pursue my struggles, and as my trust in Him grows, so does my hope. I'm watering something different than the things I used to. Psalm 25 says, lead me, teach me.

What a great posture for us. Lead me, teach me, for you are God who gives me salvation. You are the God who gives me salvation. I have no hope except in you. Now we begin to understand that He can, and He is, and He will continue to change us in His power. How cool is that? And guys, when we walk under His power, our perception from hopelessness, nothing's ever going to change, begins to shift, and now we start to expect change. That's the hope, expecting with certainty, God is going to change me. He's going to change you. We crawl into our cocoon early in the process, die to the old self, and now we become something different. How cool is that? My mom, years ago, was sick, and she was in a hospital bed, and she was in her last years of her life, and it was up and down. We didn't know if this was going to be the last week, or the last month, or the last year. It was kind of touch and go, but I remember being in the hospital room with her. Mom had a real big fear of dying, and I was in the hospital room with her, and you know how to sleep in the hospital room, in those old hard chairs, and mom's in her hospital bed, and nurses are in and out all night long, but I remember waking up to hearing a voice. It was my mom's voice, and I looked over at mom, and she is sitting up in her bed, and she has her hands up, and she's praying to God. She's having this conversation. She's talking to Jesus, and this is what she was saying. I couldn't make out every word, but I could hear generally what she was saying. Lord, I'm not afraid anymore. I trust you.

I don't have, take away my fear, Lord. I trust you. I don't have fear, because I know where I am going, and it was such a beautiful thing. She in essence shifted in her heart, and she earnestly believed that she couldn't change what was coming in front of her. She couldn't, just like we can't change the circumstances of living in a broken world, but she was earnestly believing that He exists. She earnestly believed that no matter what, He wasn't going to leave her, forsake her, and she earnestly believed that He had the power to carry her through that really hard season. Mom passed away not too long after that. I'm just thinking about her dancing with the Father. In life, we're going to have suffering, but can we suffer differently? Can we struggle well in this place we call recovery, this space we call recovery, and not grind it out and white knuckle and keep grounded to this place? If I don't keep doing this, you know, it's not an anchor. Recovery's not an anchor. It's a pair of wings. We can fly to new and different spaces. Philippians 1.6 reminds me how I can fly in this broken world under His power. I am sure that God who began a good work within you will keep right on helping grow in His grace until His task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns. The Scriptures say, how much faith do you need? Just a little mustard seed. So even in this space, where's your hope? Are you in shattered dreams? Are you in a place of brokenness and shattered hope, shattered dreams, and it feels like everything's falling apart? Maybe you've even made some choices that have taken you against how God's designed you, created this separation between you and your higher power, Jesus Christ.

Nothing separates you. Just because you can't fly right now doesn't change the fact that you're still a butterfly. You just lost your ability to fly. And so I want to encourage you, could you consider the possibility that there's a loving Father that exists, and no matter what you've done, He still loves you, and He is looking at you right now, maybe through my words, and He's saying, you matter to me. Jesus is saying, you matter to me. And I'm going to put you in a group of people that will help walk through this process we call recovery, so that you can move from cocoon caterpillar life and the process of learning how to fly, to get your wings, to not have to... White-knuckle your way to stay anchored to these practices and things that will keep you stuck through your own power, but under His power, embrace this new pair of wings. Isn't that a beautiful picture? Our hope reminds us that our recovery is not an anchor, it's a pair of wings. It's not just what we get away from, it's what we're moving toward in a new, different way as He renews, as He redeems, as He restores. He's continued to redeem and renew and restore, and if He's done it in my life, He can do it in yours. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for those that are listening to this right now. I pray that you would just wrap your arms around them. Remind them, Father, that you have big plans for them. You have made us new and different. You've created us for new and different experiences, not a caterpillar life where we have to remain crawling and grinding it out, but to give us a pair of wings through the Holy Spirit to fly to new, better places to experience and pursue things that we never dreamed or imagined, only because of what you did on the cross and only because of the Holy Spirit that lives and breathes inside of us. Help us to embrace this new way of life as we earnestly believe that you exist, earnestly believe that we matter to you in spite of anything we've done, and earnestly believe that you have the power, no matter what we've done, to help us recover so that we can fly in new, beautiful spaces. Thank you that you won't waste the hurt that my brothers and sisters are experiencing. We love you,

Father. In Jesus' name, we lift this up to you. We lift them up to you. We love you, Father. Amen. Hey, thanks for listening. Thank you for letting me share, and God bless you.