Current of Hope (blog)

Because I lived the first 20 years of my life without Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I can clearly see how different life is with Him.Like night and day.Now I have a current of hope that flows in me, which has never dried up.  It has been more than 20 years since I came to faith in Jesus.  The hope I have in Him started small but grows with each passing year, nurtured by The Lord and His Church.In a vision the prophet Ezekiel saw water flowing from the threshold of God's temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12).  As it flowed out, the water grew from ankle-deep to knee-deep and then to waist-deep.  Soon it was a river that Ezekiel could not cross."Where the river flows, everything will live," he was told.In his vision, Ezekiel saw "a great number of trees on each side of the river," and the man told him that "swarms of living creatures" live by it and that "large numbers of fish" of many kinds live in it.Even the salt-laden Dead Sea became fresh where the river flowed into it.I like to close my eyes and imagine all that Ezekiel saw.  It reminds me of how I was once dead in sin, but now I am alive and growing in Christ and blessed by Him.What has made all the difference is being near The Lord, the source of life.Storms blow the trees of the earth around.  Some storms are damaging, some are deadly.  I've weathered a few "storms" in my life these last 20 years, and my faith has been shaken.  But always that current of hope was there, flowing in me.  When the air clears, I see that I'm still firmly planted near the river of life and that my roots have grown stronger.Praise The Lord!Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?  He loves you and He came to save you.  You too can have a current of hope in you.  Come near to Him.  Come to church!  All are welcome here at SHLC.  The Lord is found in His Word.  Read a bit in The Bible, maybe using a short devotional.  Start once a week and then work up to every day, first thing in the morning so that The Lord can reach you before the world does.Jesus said, "...whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13)