One of the more powerful promises in the Bible is in a little-read book called Hosea.
There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. (Hosea 2:15 NIV, emphasis mine)
There’s more there to process than one post will probably allow for, but let’s start with this: “Achor” means trouble, and God’s promise is that He will turn the places of trouble into doorways of hope. Said another way, the places that we thought would be the end of us become the places that launch us into what’s next for us.
Another mind-blowing truth is where this all takes place, but to see that, we’d need to look back one verse. God has led Israel into the wilderness, and it’s there that trouble turned to hope. In the wilderness. The dry, barren, hot places of wandering and wondering. The places where we ask ourselves how we got there and how we’ll ever get out of there. It’s in those places that God turns our despair into destiny.
In that place, He speaks to us tenderly (v. 14). He doesn’t scold us in the wilderness; He holds us. In the wilderness, He has every right to demand respect from His wandering bride, but He instead He delights in restoring the relationship with His bride (v. 16).
This is an incredible message full of hope that needs to be shouted from the rooftops to a world that is more aware of its brokenness than ever before! The church has more to offer than simply another broken shoulder to cry on — we have a message of brokenness being redeemed into hope! People can relate to brokenness, but they can’t be redeemed by it. We’re redeemed from brokenness, not by it, and as long as brokenness is our identity, it will never become part of our testimony.
People can relate to brokenness, but they can’t be redeemed by it. Share on XThe testimony isn’t just that we’ve been seen in the wilderness, or that we’ve been found in our brokenness. Our testimony is that we were found by the only One Who can transform those broken places and pieces into stories of wholeness and healing.
Don’t hold on to your Valley of Achor. God never intended for you or me to live there. He always intended for us to step out of those places into new beginnings, filled with the hope that only comes from being led by the One Who loves us more than anyone on this planet.
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash
