What About That Box?

What about That Box?

Bible Blast: Read Romans 5:3-5

This hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Romans 5:5

We can learn some valuable lessons from stories, even when we know the story isn’t true—like the story of Pandora’s box.

Pandora was given a box (or jar) and was told never to open the box. (How lame is that?) She went to earth, and there her curiosity got the best of her. When she lifted the lid, all kinds of evil, disease, and hardships were released onto the earth. Once Pandora realized what she had done, she slammed the lid back on as fast as she could, but all the bad stuff had already gotten out. There was only one item left in her box: hope. Some versions of the myth say Pandora eventually released hope into the world, and others say she didn’t.

People are going through hard times without hope all the time. We know that true hope comes from Jesus. He came to the earth and died for our sins so we could spend eternity in heaven with him. That is our hope. People who don’t know Jesus and haven’t given their hearts to him don’t have that hope to help them through rough times, and that’s very sad.

As we grow closer to Christ, hope will become like an instinct for us. Our brains will go straight to our hope in him instead of letting our problems be like a gray cloud over us all the time. We have to choose to let hope be free in our lives so we don’t get really down, sad, depressed, and discouraged when things aren’t going very well.

Today’s Bible Blast shows us a pattern for how trials (or hard times) produce hope in us.

Problems produce endurance. (Endurance is the ability to hang in there.)

Endurance produces character. (Character is having a good reputation.)

Character produces hope.

And hope won’t ever disappoint us because God won’t ever disappoint us.

Girl Gab: What do you need to have hope for today? Talk to your mom about any hard thing you might be going through right now. Mom, pray for endurance, character, and hope for your daughter.