June Hunt - Hope: The Anchor of Your Soul

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Hope: The Anchor of Your Soul
Copyright 2013 Hope For The Heart
All rights reserved.
Published by Aspire Press
An imprint of Hendrickson Publishing Group
Rose Publishing, LLC
P.O. Box 3473
Peabody, Massachusetts 01961-3473 USA
www.HendricksonPublishingGroup.com

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HOPE

The Anchor of Your Soul

JUNE HUNT

• Gives practical advice and Biblical wisdom from June Hunt, a biblical counselor whose award-winning radio program Hope For The Heart is heard on more than 900 radio outlets around the world. For more than 25 years, she has counseled people, offering them hope for todays problems.
• Helps you characterize misplaced hope and encourages you to place your hope in the only unwavering anchor, Jesus.
• Empowers you to name the thing that has caused you to lose hope and dispel that experience with Biblical truth.

Dear friend,

Never will I forget the time when a womana medical professionalbegan attending my evening Bible study. She was a smart, serious 30-year-old who was, at the same time, emotionally stuck. (Both of her parents had died of alcoholism at a relatively young age, a background that had caused her to feel adrift, somewhat floating in a sea of uncertainty.)

Immediately Freda responded to the wonderful scriptural truths and to our warm fellowship, much as a duck takes to water.

Two years later, Freda experienced a flood of sexual flashbackslewd, unnerving flashbacks that quickly increased with intensity. Late one evening as we talked, she described the graphic, disturbing scenes washing through her mind. Finally, she named the offenderher own father.

Freda became so frustratedso full of angerthat she wanted to commit suicide. This was her statement: Why live? I dont want to be alive any longer.

The more she focused on being a victim of incest, the more fragile she became. She couldnt read the Word. She couldnt hear the truth. She couldnt see the light. Although I rehearsed Gods hope with her (hope she knew in her head), she had no hope for her heart. She said, June, it will work for you, but it wont work for me. And she stopped taking part in our group.

Then one day I received a call from Presbyterian Hospitalthe hospital where she workedexcept this call was from the Psychiatric Unit. Freda had tried to commit suicideand had almost succeeded. Freda had lost all hope.

Immediately, I went to the Psych Unit to have a heart-to-heart with her. There are no hopeless situations, I said, Only those who have grown hopeless. Freda, you have all the hope in the worldyou have the God of hope indwelling you. Still she did not respond.

Eventually Fredas medical insurance ran out and she was sent to the state hospital. (Not good!) Two days later, I received a call, June, youve got to get me out of here! These people here are like zombies. Im not like these people.

Later in the conversation she said, Ive just been thinking. God does promise hopeand I can see that hope is for me. I can overcome this pain. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. Interesting timing. I smiled.

Once Freda began focusing on the promises of God for herself personally, she improved dramatically. Within days she walked out of that asylum. As Freda was willing to work through the pain of the past, she began to walk in victory.

Let me share with you what I learned from Freda. When people need help, what is most important for them to receive? Truth, compassion, mercy? The most important of all is hope. Realize, even if they have truth in their heads, if they do not have hope that the truth will work, they can still walk away from your compassion and mercy and give up on life.

My prayer is that through this book, you will take hold of the hope God has for you so that you can live the life God has planned for you. The Lord says, I know the plans I have for you ... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). This means the Lord has a plan for your life, even amidst the pain.

When you put all the hurt into His hands, He will be your Healer, your Redeemer. And, ultimately, no pain is wasted.

Yours in the Lords hope,

HOPE

The Anchor of Your Soul

The day is a cold January 25th. Two gale force storms have already shattered the main mast of the ship. In the third month at sea, a third terrifying storm, a noreaster, caused the Englishman to fear for his lifeso much so, that he writes, It was as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. Yet, on the same ship during the same storm, a group of German Christians appear completely calm as they quote the Psalms. According to young John Wesley, their lack of fear unsettled him more than the storm itself!

How can they be calm when their ship faces catastrophe? How can they be at peace when their lives are in peril? What makes their hope strong and his so weak? All on the same battered ship, all weary from the same raging storm, all tossed by the same crashing wavesyet while one man feels frantic, the others keep calm. Why? Simply put: Their lives were anchored in Christ, and they knew their anchor would hold.

Some 150 years ago, these Mennonites, who clearly had a peace that passes all understanding, displayed their hope as though they were speaking directly to the Lord, When I am afraid, I will trust in you (Psalm 56:3). Not, if I am afraid, but When I am afraid, I will trust in you.

What an anchor is to a ship, hope is to the soul. They both stabilize whatever needs to be held steady amidst the storms in life. Every Christian has been given a secure anchor in the person of Christ, for the Bible says about Jesus:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (Hebrews 6:19)

We have all been in the same boat, with cloudy thinking about hope. The common view of hope in our culture is quite different from Christian hope . If you live by cultural hope , you will have a boatful of wishful thinking, and what you hope for will sometimes happen, and sometimes not.

However, Christian hope is based on the BibleGods unchanging Word. By patiently relying on what God says, you will have all the hope necessary with all the certainty you will ever need. The apostle Paul states the source of our hope: