A door of hope

And there I will give her back her vineyards, and make the valley of Achor a door of hope.
Hosea 2:15 ESV

Hosea is speaking about Israel. God was going to take them through a wilderness experience and in the verse before, we are told why.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. verse 14

It was a place of wooing. A place of speaking to her with tenderness. reminding her who she is in God.

The wilderness wasn’t a place of judgment or a place of punishment. It was a place where God could draw her heart back to Himself. She had wandered away from His love and only a time in the wilderness could draw her back. Only the wilderness could show her how far from God she had gone.

In Hebrew, Achor means trouble or affliction. The valley of trouble would be the place where she learns to see God in a new way. Through trouble, God was going to woo her back to His heart. He was going to get her heart back. In the valley of trouble, hope would be birthed.

The Amplified version says…and make the valley of Achor a door of hope and expectation. I love this, Our places of great trouble can become places of great hope and expectation.

In a season where I felt overlooked and forgotten in the wilderness. Where I saw everyone’s life progressing and I was in the same spot year after year. God reminded me that it would become a door of hope and great expectation. With time, I began to see things change. I began to see God’s hand in my painful situation. I began to see what the wilderness was producing. Until finally, I could see the great door of hope He had placed in front of me.

Nothing could take away the hope that was birthed in me in this season. No one could convince me that God wasn’t good.

I don’t know what season you are in. Maybe you have been in the valley of Achor for a while. Maybe it feels like things will never change. Maybe you have resigned yourself to that situation.

Today God wants to breathe some hope into you. He wants us to remember that our valley of trouble and affliction is going to be a door of hope and expectation.

A few things l learnt in the valley of trouble.

We can turn it into places of joy. Yes, right there in the middle of trouble, we can make it a place of joy. I didn’t learn joy when things were easy. I learnt joy in trouble. I learnt that the joy of the Lord is my strength and I could walk through hard things without losing my joy.

We chose what the season will become. Psalm 84:6 when they walk through the valley of weeping, they make it a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. Pay attention here, it says, “They make it…” it’s not accidental. We have to decide what our seasons will produce. We can go through places of weeping and make it a place of bitterness and unforgiveness. Or we can make it a place of refreshing springs; where people can find hope, comfort and experience the goodness of God through us.

Trouble produces hope. Its sounds upside down, the only thing trouble is meant to produce is more trouble. But not when we go through them with God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4 When we go through trouble, God is working out something in us. He is looking to produce endurance, and through endurance He gets character and out of character hope is produced.

Hope becomes our stronghold. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; even today I declare that I will restore to you double. Zechariah 9:12 In trouble we make a conscious decision that we will become a prisoner of hope. We will not become prisoners of our situations. We will be imprisoned by the expectation that God is working it out for good. Even when it seems hopeless, we hold fiercely to hope. Hope becomes our place of safety and security. It becomes the reason we get up and get through another day. It becomes the reason why we do not quit even when we should because we know He is up to something great and He is not done with us yet.

Sis, get your hopes up! God is doing something great in you and through you even when you can’t quite see it now.