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Hope Chest

 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (II Peter 1:3)

This weekend is a hunker-down weekend for many of us. There’s a big winter storm coming through, and while that may not be as nasty an event where I am, it’s a chance for me to practice my emergency preparedness. Some of it is silly stuff, like getting the laundry done on Friday instead of Saturday so I don’t freeze dry my clothes on the line. Other stuff is more vital, like watering and covering my plants to try to protect them from frost and freeze. I’m figuring it out – I made extra room in my shed for them and put my lawn mower in a position to support covers for other plants.

Another thing that comes to mind is what I said the other day about a Battle Bible. Today’s verses are a strong candidate. Granted, God’s ideas about our needs are different from ours, but when things get crazy… remember the song about sometimes He calms the storm, sometimes He calms His child? These are “calm His child” verses. They are verses that strengthen hope. There are other verses that strengthen courage, faith, or something else, but hope comes first. There’s no sense in having faith if you have nothing in which to have faith and no reason to have it.

It used to be that teen girls collected things that might be useful in the future. Relatives gave pieces of dish sets as gifts. The girls put their gifts into a trunk that was known as the "hope chest." It's a good name for a category of Battle Bible verses. What other verse or passages would you put into the hope chest? 

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