In His power there is real hope

Column post by Laura Hyers

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” -Romans 15:13

I am a woman who relies too much on her emotions. I am a bundle of feelings, and I feel everything with all I have. Some days it’s a blessing, but a lot of times it’s almost a curse. I am so strongly affected by the events of a day, the words someone said, the way I perceive a situation, that sometimes I am almost paralyzed by how I feel.

My husband is my exact opposite here, and thank God for that. He is so logical and calm, he thinks things through and looks at every angle and oftentimes he hasn’t even stepped into a boat of thought by the time I have lost myself at sea. If I feel like I’m about to drown in my emotions I can go to him for perspective, and I think he almost always talks me into a place of discernment and peace instead of whatever high place I had taken myself, relying on my heart and what I thought it was saying.

That’s really where my problem is – what I think my heart is saying. What I think someone is going to do, or what really happened, or what this person said. It’s all about what I think, and that’s where I start to lose solid ground. My heart and head are unreliable places, ruled by insecurity and aggression and a need for acceptance that goes deeper than I can understand.

But the wonderful thing about knowing God, about living within the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is that I don’t need to rely on my head or my heart. If I’m filled with the Spirit, I am set free from my hang-ups and worries, from my interpretations of what happened today and what she meant when she said that really mean thing and what I should have said in response; I am free and full of power to tell my heart and my head how to act.

I’ve been trying this out and it’s harder than it sounds, this whole having-joy-and-peace-in-situations-where-it-seems-impossible thing, but it has been good.

I can wake up on the wrong side of the bed and tell my head that today is going to be a good day because God has filled it with great opportunities for me to love His children.

I can walk into a situation with a heart full of anxiety and tell my wayward soul that God is not surprised by my circumstances and that I have been given a spirit of power in Him.

Think about it, friend – would God, your loving Father, want you to struggle through the day? Would you watch your children languish and stand idly by? Of course not. He has given us immeasurable strength. We just need to use it.

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Laura Hyers is a Tampa native, writer, and the newly wed wife of musician Caleb. She recently graduated from the University of South Florida with a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a concentration in literature and is currently teaching preschool. When not chasing a class of two-year-olds, Laura is writing and fighting fierce bouts of wanderlust. She loves music, reading, being near the ocean, and dreaming big over huge cups of coffee with her best friend Lakin. Laura blogs at http://littlebirdmarie.wordpress.com.

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