Focus on the bigger picture

Psalm 119: 49-50

Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.  My comfort in my suffering is this, your promise preserves my life.  NIV

What I like about these verses is the connections between God’s word, and hope; and God’s promises and the preservation of life.

The Message translates “suffering,” here as “bad times.”  In bad times, times of worry, the important thing is to focus on the bigger picture, and not to get so absorbed in the moment that you allow yourself to lose perspective.  For a Christian, the bigger picture includes eternity.

I’ve been thinking a lot in these last couple of weeks about the connections I’m finding between “God’s word” and “hope,” and also about the many references to God being the embodiment of love.

I can’t remember how old I was when I first read I Corinthians, Chapter 13.  But, it is a passage that I’ve looked at over and over at different times in my life.

Its last verse, verse 13, keeps returning to me — “But now, these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.” NIV

The word of God, His promises, are the source of hope for the writer of this Psalm — he notes that they preserve his life.  Jesus Christ is the Word, He is the source of my hope, and He has provided me with the gift of everlasting life.

God is love.

And, the Holy Spirit lives within me, which bolsters my faith.

I want to think more about these three things — faith, hope and love.

That’s what I’ll think about today.