{"id":788553,"date":"2022-10-20T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=788553"},"modified":"2022-10-19T07:09:51","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T12:09:51","slug":"clinging-to-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/clinging-to-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinging to Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing I\u2019ve noticed in recent years is that people have no margin. More and more, people from all walks of life seem to be living on the ragged edge of chaos.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one financial crisis away from bankruptcy<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one blowup away from relational collapse<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one temptation away from moral failure<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one calamity away from emotional meltdown<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one illness away from physical breakdown<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one doubt away from apostasy<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If chaos and calamity haven\u2019t found you yet, it\u2019s only a matter of time before they do. When\u2014not if\u2014that happens to you, where will you go for strength to endure\u2014and for hope to carry on? None of us is exempt from the sudden trials and lingering tribulations of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">life. None of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout 2020 and in the early months of 2021, it seemed everybody around me was dealing with their own calamities. They rolled in like a storm, stopped people in their tracks, and left their victims feeling helpless and even hopeless.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This reality hit hard while I was working on this very book. For about eight months, I lost sight in one eye. It was like a dust storm had blown in from the Texas Panhandle and obscured my vision. With one eye out of commission, the complications began to domino. My depth perception evaporated, and my night vision weakened. That made driving \u201cexciting.\u201d Needless to say, my passengers suggested I give up driving for a while.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Others around me faced their own trials.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A very close friend of mine had to be rushed to the ER in an ambulance. It turned out he not only tested positive for COVID- 19 but also had pneumonia, bronchitis, and strep! They got him to the hospital just in time, but that quartet of troubles could have easily done him in.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure we could all close our eyes and picture people who didn\u2019t fare as well as my friend did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another friend of mine had his daily life come to a screeching halt during the infamous Texas \u201cIcepocalypse\u201d in February 2021. Historic below-freezing temperatures combined with lost power caused a pipe in his home to freeze and burst, flooding his downstairs. In the months it took to repair the damaged house and replace ruined property, everything in his life was put on hold. When something like that T-bones your life, you never really catch up, do you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know people who have spent their last cent of borrowed optimism struggling against cancer. They suffered through aggressive chemotherapy, gathered prayer warriors around them who pleaded their case before God, and gripped hope with numb fingers while their suffering tried to rip that hope from them like a thief. Then they went in for a checkup and heard crushing news. Instead of the tumor shrinking, it metastasized. Perhaps you know all too well what that ride home was like or what dinner around the table felt like that evening. How easy to just give up on hope in days of deep disappointment and despair!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re living in some tough days, friends. Sudden calamities hit us like nuclear meltdowns. The disaster itself is bad enough. But the aftermath and desolation can linger for years\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">even decades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of us are in desperate need of strength and hope. Life is difficult and demanding. It\u2019s often filled with pain, heartache, setbacks, and detours. Our disappointment in others saddens us. Scandals among those we respect shock us. Disputes in our families, churches, or workplaces demoralize us. When such troubles strike, they can be downright devastating.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But they don\u2019t have to be!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We can endure unexpected calamities. How? By taking our stand on the strong foundation of God\u2019s Word. When trials and tribulations rumble in like a fleet of bulldozers to demolish our lives, we can emerge from the rubble with a strong resolve to recover and rebuild. We don\u2019t have to settle for merely surviving; we can set our sights on thriving.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our good, powerful, awesome God is inviting each of us to run to Him as our only strong tower, which can never teeter or topple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Him alone, we can find the strength and hope to endure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>__________________<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn more about what Scripture says about weather times of trouble, chaos, and calamity in Chuck Swindoll\u2019s newest book,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tyndale.com\/p\/clinging-to-hope\/9781496435385?utm_source=ChurchAnswers&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_campaign=ClingingtoHope\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clinging to Hope<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One thing I\u2019ve noticed in recent years is that people have no margin. More and more, people from all walks of life seem to be living on the ragged edge of chaos. one financial crisis away from bankruptcy one blowup away from relational collapse one temptation away from moral failure one calamity away from emotional&#8230;","protected":false},"author":15892,"featured_media":788555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,184,175,186,177,191,176,15962],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-788553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-discipleship","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-lead","category-mind-body-and-spirit","category-revitalize","category-womens-discipleship"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Clinging to Hope | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One thing I\u2019ve noticed in recent years is that people have no margin. 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