REFLECTION EXERCISE A

PROCEDURE

Reflect on your thoughts, feelings and situations with the Lord in prayer. Choose one prayer step to HOPE which seems to match your current needs from the list below. Which Scripture passage challenges, encourages or surprises you? Discuss this with the Lord. What action may you be called to perform based on your reflection to be an instrument of HOPE for another person?

SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION ON HOPE

H onesty

O penness

P erspective

E ndurance

LIVING IN HOPE

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Trial or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through Christ who has loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor light nor angels nor principalities nor present nor future nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the Love of God that comes to us through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“Hoping for what we cannot yet see, we are able to wait in trust and confidence…The one who sees into all hearts knows what we need …
All things work together for good for those who love God.”

HONESTY

“You have searched me and you know me…Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, oh God.”
“The truth will set you free.”
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened to see in order that you may know the hope to which God has called you.”
“I was given a thorn in the flesh.”
“We do not lose our faith. We simply stop shaping our lives by it.”

OPENNESS

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unknown things.”
“I can do all things in Him who give me strength.”
“My grace is enough for you; my power is manifest in weakness.”
“Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
“I am a confirmed believer in blessings in disguise. I prefer them undisguised when I happen to be the person blessed; in fact, I can hardly recognize a blessing in disguise except when it is bestowed on someone else.”

PERSPECTIVE

“We live by faith not by sight.”
“So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.”
“Glory be to the Father whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”
“So, I can live with my weakness, because my spiritual boast is in Christ’s power. I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.”
“The Spirit brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness, self-control. Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit.”
“Love seeketh not itself to please nor itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a heaven in hell’s despair.”

ENDURANCE

“Rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice. Be comforted the Lord is very near. Have no anxiety, place your needs before the Lord asking God for help with prayer and thanksgiving and then the peace of God which is beyond all understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, fill your minds and your thoughts with only what is true, noble, good, pure, everything that we love and honor. Everything that is good and worthy of praise. Keep doing all these things then the God of Peace will be with you.”
“We do not lose heart.”
“I have run the race…”
“Nothing is impossible with God.”
“The risen Christ… causes us to live passionate, connected, authentic lives. We choose endurance rather than avoidance and integrity rather than conformity. With Christ as our companion, we become people of the resurrection riding the ups and downs of our particular journey with the bedrock assurance that every Good Friday moment of our lives would be raised up into an Easter event.”