Hope

James 1:16-18 says, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”
One of Satan’s favorite tactics with us as believers is to get us to question the goodness of God. When we go through hard times in our lives we are tempted to think that God is doing this to us. When a loved on dies often I hear a person say that God took my husband, wife or child. When an accident happens often we ask why God would allow it to happen. When we fail we are tempted to question whether or not God cares or if He is good. In the midst of a natural disaster such as hurricane Katrina many people blame God for what happens. When life doesn’t turn out the way we want it to Satan will try to get you to cast blame upon God or to question God’s compassion.
The real target is your belief in the goodness of God. If Satan can get you to question even for a brief time the absolute goodness of God, then the enemy has a golden opportunity to deceive you. James tells us that one of the ways that we are deceived is when we question the goodness of God. If you want to maintain hope in the midst of disaster in your life you must come to place where your belief that God is always good is fixed and determined in your life. In the Psalms David makes it clear that we have no good thing apart from God (Psalm 16:2). Understand that the good things in your life are from God. The bad things are a result of sin, whether yours or someone else’s or whether or not it is deliberate always remember that God is good all the time.
Our faith rests upon the goodness of God. If Satan can get you to question that then Satan can get you to question your faith in a God who is less than good. Don’t be deceived by disappointment. Settle in your heart now that God is good and then praise Him for His goodness and His grace and mercy. If you can persevere through the pain and disappointment then God will develop character in your life. One of the by-products of character is hope. We have this promise in Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.