Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst

“Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst”

Matthew 26:39 NLT

He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

I think we would all agree that most of the times in our lives when we face difficult situations, we hope and pray for the best outcome.  I mean, who wouldn’t pray for a great outcome when hard times are present, right?  Who in their right mind would even consider praying for bad things to happen?  No one would.  However, we all know that both good and hard times both come with life.  There is no escaping it.

Through various times in the past couple of years, I thought off and on about the idea of hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.  I used to find myself always hoping and praying for the best to come, but then not preparing for what could happen if it were not the best outcome.  I often found myself not dealing with the bad outcomes.  In the recent past, I have found myself preparing more mentally for both.  I have come to a point where I really try to accept the possibilities of both good and bad outcomes. 

I always want to hope for the best, of course, but I also want to mentally and spiritually prepare for the worst.  I’ve been finding that through these prayers of asking God to help me mentally and spiritually prepare for both, I am prepared to accept the worst outcome, but when the opposite happens, I am so grateful for the best.  This has been a thought on my mind for a while now and I’m learning to pray and prepare myself more like this.  I hope and pray for the best, but then also ask God to help me accept if the outcome is not what I hoped for.

When I think of Jesus as He prays this prayer 3 times to His Father as He approaches a very agonizing time in His life, I think about his prayer in being hopeful for the best, but prepared for the worst.  This struggle He had and prayed through is so powerful! 

I’ve been amazed how much this way of thinking and praying has helped me through recent times in various ways.  It’s not easy, but it’s been helping me as I consider what God wants me to do as I live each day.  I always hope for the best, but I want to be prepared and ready if things don’t go the best way I had hoped for.  I need to be prepared and ready to accept and still be faithful no matter the outcome.  Being willing to accept and stay faithful is so huge!

Friends, I pray that we will all daily always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst so that we can all strive to do God’s will regardless of what situations we find ourselves in.  It’s all about His glory, not what we want. 

Resurrender

“Resurrender”

Matthew 16:24-25 NLT

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.  If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.  But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”

I just got done reading through a 7 day devotional on the Bible app regarding Resurrender.  It seems timely to me as a new year has begun and I’m reflecting on my walk with God and how I need to be more committed in my daily walk with Him. 

As I thought to myself about things that we do daily in our lives, there are so many daily routines that we become accustomed to.  From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we have many routines that we go through each day.  Many of these routines we don’t even think twice about because they have become such a habit.  We just get used to doing the same things each day and it becomes second nature to us. 

As I consider so much that I do on a daily basis, I think about my walk with God and what all I am doing each day to live for Him.  This devotional I read reminded me that surrender is not just a one-time thing I did when I gave my life to Christ so many years ago.  Each day, it needs to be a routine to surrender my life back to God.  But it needs to be more than just a regular routine.  Routine is and can be good, but I don’t want to just say the words that I surrender and go on with my day.  I want my resurrender to God to be very heartfelt and very genuine.

We’ve experienced some challenging times lately in our home and we’ve been learning to really trust and rely on Him instead of our own understanding and strength.  However, this is a daily decision we have to make.  It is not easy to choose each day to deny ourselves and walk with Him in total surrender.  I am learning that it is amazing to resurrender each day and watch Him work in ways I don’t understand.  Even the days when I have no idea what He is doing, I still choose to resurrender because I know His ways are not my ways.

I need to choose each day to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus without any reservations.  Resurrender involves me being willing to completely give up my ways. 

My prayer is that we will all make a genuine choice each new day to completely turn over our lives and resurrender to Him. 

“Wait for it!  Wait for it!”

Isaiah 43:19 NLT

For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it?  I will make a pathway through  the wilderness.  I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

This Scripture came through my email this morning from Air1 Radio.  It is a very timely passage as we have just ended 2022 and begun 2023.  As I read this passage, the phrase that came to mind was “Wait for it!  Wait for it!”  I’m sure we are all very familiar with this phrase as we’ve heard it in movies, tv shows, sporting events and from people we know. 

When we hear this phrase, we know something is just about to happen that will often surprise us.  Maybe it will be a good surprise, while other times not so much.  It’s funny sometimes to hear people say this phrase because the whole crowd nearby knows exactly what is going to happen.  When we or others bring this up, it’s usually some action or event that will happen within moments.  We then wait with anticipation to see what will occur!

While many of these moments happen quickly, there are some things we are waiting for in life that don’t come as quickly as we’d like or don’t seem to come at all.  We tend to wait a lot for things to happen in our lives.  As we have closed out 2022, many of us may still be waiting for things to happen that we’ve been waiting so long and hope for.

Waiting for a spouse to come back home.

Waiting for a child to be healed.

Waiting for that promotion at our job to come through.

Waiting for the diagnosis from the doctor.

Waiting for a troubled teen to make a turn for the better.

Waiting for funds to get out of debt.

The list could go on and on.  Often, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel defeated by these moments we are waiting for.  Isaiah’s words here are so very powerful!  It’s like a slap across the face, so to speak.  It’s like a splash of water in the face that startles us!  Sometimes, we need to snap out of our mode and wake up to the fact that God is always working!  Yeah, things may not be happening as we’d hoped or wanted, but that doesn’t mean He’s not working.

I have to admit that I have a bad habit of getting in a crabby mood and looking at things negatively.  I do this way more often than I would like to admit.  My wife has put up with me for almost 19 years and does a wonderful job of “waking me up” to realize that God is in control and that He’s doing great things.  I just need to get my focus back on track. 

We all need to wait for it and anticipate the great things God has in store this year for us!  He is working and we need to open our eyes to see it!