What causes us to hold onto hope? How do we know that things will work out when they seem insurmountable? How do we hold onto our faith? These are questions that I’ve asked myself over the course of my life and as recently as yesterday. It seems that when I’m faced with problems I get what my Pastor calls “spiritual amnesia”. This occurs when we forget how much God has done for us in the past.

I am in the process of finishing a reading plan on biblical meditation and one of the day’s scripture reading was on remembering our history with God. One of the verses they highlighted was Psalm 77:3-12 which speaks to just this idea. The writer was lamenting about not seeing God work in his situation and questioned if he has lost favor with God. But by the end he remembered just how much God had done for him and he concentrated on God’s goodness as whole.

Honestly, I am constantly telling myself to think back on everything that God has done for me and think about how far I’ve come just because of His goodness. This is a hard-fought battle for me because I can burrow deep in my mind and find the darkest corner and stay there. Not healthy.

One of my favorite scriptures is Philippians 4:6-8 which talks about not giving in to anxiety but praying to God about the things that are making us anxious and to think on things that are positive which includes God’s goodness. If we focus on the positive instead of on the negative things will get better. Maybe not right now. Maybe the situation itself won’t change but how we view it, how we deal with it will change.

We then have hope. We believe in others & ourselves. We most importantly believe God’s word and can continue to walk with the confidence that we can face anything.

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