y name is Robin Starr. Recently, the Holy Spirit said to me that another magazine was going to reach out to me to write for them. Then a few days later the CEO for Hope Is Now Magazine did exactly that! I love writing, I love sharing my heart and I love encouraging others and giving them hope. It’s what I do. It is who I am. So when Mr. Dion Welton asked me to write my own column for this beautiful hope filled magazine, it was challenging not to tell him “Yes!” even before he asked. Don’t you just love when God, the Creator of the Universe does His thing! Please pause there for a moment….stop your Universe and selah. God. The Creator of the Universe spoke to this mere human. And He spoke to Mr. Welton about the same time about the same thing. God the Creator of the Universe, orchestrated two paths to synchronize in the month of January 2023. The God of Hope brought together two “hope peddlers” affording me the opportunity along with the rest of his Hope Team to spread hope far and wide. Just remember God’s got a plan, bigger and better than you could ever come up with. And He can get you where you need to be, when you need to be there. Don’t you worry, God’s got your barcode and he can bring heavenly synchronization and cause His purposes for you to align with all creation in a snap. The extra bonus with God is that He can and will accelerate events to catch you up with His timeline if you are lagging behind! We just need to hold on to hope and the promises He gave us years or even decades ago. Actually, I was in the process of renewing my hopes in some outlandish dreams from about 25 years ago. When I told God, “I am ready to commit to writing more this new year, so I will need You to bring those opportunities my way.” Of course, God is not my genie, but this sometimes self sufficient human was reminding herself and Him, how much I needed Him. I endeavor to work as if it all depends on me, but then I must also remember to lean, trust and pray as if it all depends on Him. And being this faulty human that I am, I can easily get them switched! Sometimes, the simplest and shortest prayers are the most powerful. And we too often, overthink, overwork, and can overwhelm ourselves when we overlook that God says his grace is sufficient. His spontaneous, unmerited gift of divine favor and divine influence operating in us is our enabling power. Enabling us to do and to be what we cannot do and cannot be if left to merely our own means. Humans By: Robin Starr Hi Beautiful M
I have loved to write since I was itty bitty. I wrote poems and songs mostly about heartbreak and daddys disappearing and a mom that left three small children home alone for days at a time. Compassionately I say that, but she was busy looking for love but in all the wrong places, when she had plenty waiting by the door and watching out the window for her to return. But I also wrote about the inspirations I saw in creation as I still do. I would know I hit a depth of intangible realities as I wrote, when one word or one sentence would literally leave me undone. Oftentimes, it was the working of the Holy Spirit as a youngster writing in my notebook sitting on my bed. When older, I followed this same vein when preparing for sermons when I pastored for 20 years, or prepared what I would share as I spoke at an event. I confidently knew that I stepped into the river of life and I was the carrier of light and love for the audience I would be sharing with. So it is with you as well. When we are not afraid to be vulnerable with the Maker of our hearts, and then courageous to take his heart beat via words, spoken or written to a hungry and thirsty generation, we go from “hope holders” to being fountains of living waters. For “Out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38 A vital truth concerning living waters having fluid flow, can be found in the Scripture, “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” When we don’t, our inner spring can become contaminated and clogged up with all sorts of toxic dead junk, that will not benefit you or the hearer. I recall being newly married, and constantly getting that Scripture. Imagine that. I could not for the life of me interpret completely what this was to mean to me. Though I studied it for years, yet it would be many years before I could fully comprehend the sobriety of that Scripture and how it could have saved me from many ills. But I did not know what I did not know. But God did. I have always been really big on “God is love.” And since God was love, and if “you do all these marvelous things but yet you do not possess love, you are nothing but a loud noisy gong.” Therefore, I made it my ambition to not merely possess love, but become love. What better way to to become like my Father and to be Christ like. Not only be loving, possessing love, but actually become love.
18 | Hope Is Now Magazine
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online