The world’s most desperate need.
Psalm 71:14 – But I will hope continually, and will praise you yet more and more.
Can giving up hope kill you? Yes. A research study published in ScienceDirect examined the condition which “describes people who respond to traumatic stress by developing extreme apathy, giving up hope, relinquish the will to live and die, despite no obvious organic cause.” Yet today in America, there are many who are feeling defeated and have given up on hope. Many are hopeless because of the coronavirus, shuttered businesses, loss of employment, racial and political tensions. There is a desperate need for hope in America…and indeed in the whole world.
An article in the Military Times reported that the Korean War introduced “an insidious new strain on prisoners of war. The death rate in the North Korean POW camps was an incredible 38 percent – the highest in U.S. military history.” They concluded that they were in a prison of hopelessness and isolation…and they gave up!
The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians reminded believers to focus on three essentials: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Hope will give you an internal peace that better is yet to come regardless of present circumstances.
Do not voluntarily put yourself into a prison of hopelessness but do as the psalmist did in today’s verse. Praise God more and more, and hope will be alive in you.
Pray With Us
God of All Hope, thank You for redeeming me and for letting me rise out of the prison of hopelessness. I admit that it is easy to fall into that trap when I listen to the news, hear what the politicians and pundits are saying, watch my neighbors suffer from lack of employment, and hear of the death rate from the coronavirus. You are in control…of this world, of this nation, and of me! I surrender that to You., Give me courage when hope seems waning. I do praise You and will praise You more and more, in Jesus’ Name,
Amen.
