All fear goes. All angst leaves. Joy moves in, and it overflows, and it tips you over what you thought was the edge of your personality. God wants that to be the normal Christian experience – it can actually be your experience of faith, if you want it to be. But maybe you’ve not felt that? Maybe belief has always been just a brain thing for you. Something you’ve kept in the intellect. If that’s so, don’t write yourself off. Jesus is getting you ready for a boost. He has so much more for you. The sort of belief He has for you is the sort of belief you didn’t think it was even ‘okay’ to have – too happy, too noisy, too much holiday in it. The sort of belief that’s like a five year old opening a Coco Pops box and finding it’s full of toys instead of cereal. (That’s actually a pretty good working definition for ‘abounding in hope’, by the way.)
There are two ways of getting to it. 1) Yield to it. You can’t dream it up. You can’t make it happen to yourself. It has to be the God of hope who fills you with all joy and peace in believing – not your imagination. The good news is, He’s a good, good Father who’d love to do exactly that. So yield. Say to Him, ‘I’m open to this. Please do what only You can do, and bring me a belief that fills me with joy.’ 2) Focus on it – if it’s not something you’re really that bothered about, don’t be surprised if God stops bothering too.
What now?
If you want this, go after it. If you feel like you’ve already got the beginnings of it, praise God for it.
