Hope For the Future

The challenges we face in human relationship can not result in lasting change without the power of the Holy Spirit and the principles of God's Word.  We can try in human wisdom and so-called "strength," but those tools are inferior to what God offers.  Romans 5 states:
3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Human wisdom cannot produce godly results, and so the wisdom of man might offer a temporary fix; yet, the Scriptures can produce a change in the heart. In our humanity, we are frail and weak, but through humbling ourselves before the Lord, we can avail ourselves of His strength. He gives us powerful resources in order that we might address our brokenness and experience His restoration. In that knowledge, we can have hope.

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In the 15th chapter of Romans, we can read about the hope that we have in Christ.  Beginning in
verse 4, we can read:
4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,
6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

Our past can certainly impact our present, and how we respond to the echoes of the past can determine the course of our future.  And, we know that, in Christ, we can have hope for the future.  We can change the trajectory of history.

And, the consequences of the past can sometimes play out in the present, as Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson recently found out.  But, his response has apparently yielded a great outcome.

As the The Christian Post reports, a lady named Phyllis had discovered, through a DNA test three years ago that she and her siblings did not share the same father.  The article says:

She explained that her genealogy results weren’t “matching up” with what she was previously told about her heritage. Her results revealed that she and her two siblings were actually “half-siblings.”

After taking a deeper look into her family tree, it led her to believe Phil was her dad.

She reached out to two of Phil's sons, Jase and Al, who arranged for a paternity test to take place, confirming that Phil Robertson was Phyllis' father.  So, how can this be?  Well, as the Post states:

Phil has always talked honestly about his wild past of using drugs and cheating on his wife, Miss Kay, whom he married when he was 17. Phyllis was a result of his past life, which he just discovered.

Phyllis joined Jase and Al and her newfound father on a recent episode of Unashamed with Phil Robertson on BlazeTV. The article relates:

When the father and daughter were finally brought together to meet and speak face to face for the first time, Phil told his family he wanted to speak with Phyllis privately.

“Everybody had warned me that he’s not very nurturing and be prepared,” Phyllis said her brother warned her. “I found you to be very nurturing. He grabbed me by the hands.”

“I put my hands on her face,” Phil recollected, and looked “in her eyes,” taking in the fact that he now had a daughter. They spoke for 45 minutes before joining her new family.

She has readily been accepted by the Robertson family, including Miss Kay, Phil's wife, who said she was "thrilled beyond belief."  Phil and Miss Kay's children are all men, so Phyllis has in essence become the daughter they never had - together.

The Post story also notes that Phil said, "You came out of a sinful situation but now that you're here, you say, 'I've been following Jesus for 45 years..." She responded by saying: "God's hand has been on my life all my life, and that grace that God was extending to you, saving you and changing you and your family, I believe that extended to me. I don't understand that exactly but God is mysterious and big and great and I just believe that that's what happened.”

This was certainly a redemptive moment, with Phil saying that Phyllis was "the best thing that ever came out my past."  There were certainly consequences of Phil's past sinful behavior, and this could have been a destructive moment for the Robertson family, but because of the presence of the Lord, He has taken the past, redeemed it, and now there is hope for the future in this new father-daughter relationship.

We are certainly, as a nation, have gone through and are continuing to go through a difficult stage, but Phil's granddaughter, Sadie Robertson Huff, reminded viewers on Fox Nation recently, that we can trust God with our future.  CBN quotes her as saying:

"But the beauty in this, if there is beauty in this, is that we are all going through it together," Robertson continued. "There's something really beautiful about knowing that even though we don't have control - that we have a God who is a good father, who is in control of everything."

"It says in Psalms 46, he's an ever-present help in times of trouble," she said on the Fox Nation show. "So we got to fix our eyes on him. It says in Hebrews that even Jesus when he was enduring the agony of the cross, he fixed his eyes on heaven for the hope that has."

So, we have a choice regarding our past: are we going to allow it to hold us back, keep us down, restrain us from experiencing what God has in store for us?  Or are we going to walk forward toward Jesus, allowing Him to redeem our past, deal with the consequences, and trust Him with our future?  Phil had an unknown visitor from his past, and he could have caused the situation to cause bitterness and anger.  But, he gracefully accepted his daughter and his family did, too - it's a wonderful picture of God's redeeming grace.

We have to confront our brokenness and allow the Lord to heal us. I think we are facing that moment in our nation - the past is calling, and we have to recognize its power to adversely affect the present and move forward into the future with love and understanding; not in a sense of posturing, but in a sense of recognizing the position that we have in Christ to be ministers of reconciliation.