We hope by now you have received your 30-Day Devotional Guide created by your Flourish Committee. If you haven't, we may not have a correct address for you. You can find a printable pdf version of the Devotional on our website www.theflourishconference.org or at www.cggcwomen.org. Over the next several months, we will be posting each devotional on our blog as well, helping us to celebrate this milestone throughout the year. Today's blog post commemorates the thirtieth year of the March Retreat.
#30 2021 Speakers: Dr. Karen McGibbon Musicians: Emmaus Road
God’s Word is HOPE: Flourishing in every Season
“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
~Romans 8:25~
The 30th anniversary year was indeed a year that will go down in history. Perhaps not for the typical reasons. Rather, it was the only year our ladies could not gather together in Findlay, OH. The reason for this? A worldwide pandemic- COVID-19.
Let’s pause and review a bit. We were fortunate to meet in-person for the Flourish Conference the previous year of 2020. Just weeks later, it seemed like everything was shut down, and we were ordered to stay at home and quarantine. Because the information was scarce about this crisis, people all over the world were left without answers, without remedies, and seemingly without hope.
Rom 8:25 tells us, “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Bibleref.com explains this verse in Romans: “Paul has been describing 1) our current state of being and 2) our future as Christians. Our future is glory when all will be made right, our faith will be vindicated to the world, and our redeemed bodies will allow us to be with our Father forever. Our current state, though, is one of longing for that {future} day. For now, we have to suffer through the realities of life and all the consequences of sin on this side of eternity. Though our hope is sure, {intangible}, it has not yet arrived. Paul describes us, Christians, as people who wait with patience for a hope we do not see with our eyes. Although, we might not always feel the longing as intensely, or always {wait} as patiently. Still, to be a Christian in this life means we patiently wait for the best possible reality anyone can imagine. We can trust our Father to bring it about at just the right time.”
It’s this hope of what is yet to come that gives us the faith and trust to wait patiently for our eternity with God, despite the pain and suffering we all experience; be it a pandemic, a divorce, an illness, a job loss, or any other thing the enemy of this world tries to throw at us to separate us from the love of God.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39). What a wondrous example of hope! It’s this same God, the same Jesus, the same Holy Spirit who holds us in His hands every single day we breathe. This is our Heavenly Father who created us to serve Him by using the gifts & passions with which He has designed us. This is the same Lord of the Universe’s plans and purposes that have created each of us to live in 2021. It’s the hope from our Savior and Lord that makes it possible for believers to flourish in every season of their life.
Author: Lynn Kaufman