Hope Beyond the Storm: Walking the Yellow Brick Road

``Hope is the confident, grace formed trust that God is at work behind what we can see, faithfully leading us toward redemption even through suffering. Hope is not wishful thinking or blind optimism. Hope is the settled confidence that God keeps his promises and that the story is not finished and that the resurrection always has the final word. Hope is trusting God's future more than fearing today's reality. Let me say that again. Hope is trusting God's future more than fearing today's reality. Hope is waking up and choosing to trust that God is still writing our story even when today's chapter hurts. [00:49:03] (58 seconds)  #ConfidentHope

Dorothy sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow not as a song of certainty, but of longing. It's it's the song of someone who believes quietly and stubbornly that somewhere beyond what she sees today, something better exists, and that's called hope. And today, we're talking about the best of hope not as optimism and not as an act of denial, not calling what is is, but as the quiet confidence that God is still working after the storm. [00:46:29] (43 seconds)  #LongingForMore

God is not finished with you, me, or anyone yet. He's not finished with the world. He's not finished with creation. Hope does not say this doesn't hurt when it really hurts. Hope says this pain has a purpose or a meaning. Groaning is not faithlessness. Groaning is honesty. John Wesley would say that grace does not remove suffering, but it redeems it. [00:51:35] (31 seconds)  #NotFinishedYet

Last but not least, the cowardly lion who needed to have courage redefined. He believes courage means fearlessness. He learns courage means faithfulness in fear. In the Wesleyan theology, courage is not bravado. It's not pushing your chest out and running into the machine gun nest. It is obedience sustained by hope and grace. Hope does not eliminate fear. Hope teaches us to walk through that fear. [00:56:08] (36 seconds)  #FaithfulCourage

Waiting is one of the most spiritual disciplines there is. Waiting teaches us humility, teaches us to trust. Waiting teaches us that we're not in control, which was really difficult lesson for me to learn. Dorothy keeps walking the yellow brick road not because she knows the outcome, but because she trusts the direction. Stay the course. Stay on the path. Friends, faith is not knowing where the road ends. Faith is believing God walks the road with you. And if he is with us, there is always hope. [00:57:19] (46 seconds)  #TrustTheRoad

And the pastor recognizes her, and she stands up, and she's she's bracing herself with her cane. And she says, pastor, I just wanna thank God for the hard times. And that statement stopped me cold. My brain flipped. I didn't know, like, thank God for the hard times. But I was 20. I didn't get it yet. But most great stories start with a storm. [00:45:12] (27 seconds)  #ThankfulThroughStorms

She's just trying to survive a tornado. And the storm comes uninvited, lifts her off the ground, and drops her into a world that she never asked to be a part of. And if we're honest this morning, most of us didn't plan the storms that shaped our lives either. No plan no one plans for the 3AM phone call. No one plans for the unexpected diagnosis. No one plans for the betrayal of a close friend or the loss of a loved one. Yet storms in our lives have a way of becoming the doorway into the deepest work God does in us. [00:45:50] (39 seconds)  #StormsShapeUs

Paul says in Romans chapter eight that hope that is seen is not hope. Hope shows up before resolution. Hope shows up when all you have is a longing or a trust. And that's why this song still moves us today because every generation eventually needs a language for the ache in their soul. The belief that somewhere beyond the storm, God is at work. [00:41:06] (31 seconds)  #HopeBeforeResolution