You're listening to a new beginning with Greg Lawry, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners,

helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org.

How do you build hope? Well, here's something that might surprise you.

Hope grows in the garden of adversity.

We may wish it was the opposite. Why not let our hope grow in a time of pain-free serenity?

Pastor Greg Lawry says that's not God's design and Father knows past.

Hope actually gets stronger when things get harder, but you must turn to God, not turn away from God.

Are you hopeful or are you hopeless?

When the alarm goes off early so we can get up and work out, it's easy to wish we could strengthen our muscles while we lie there in bed.

But we know it doesn't work that way.

When it comes to growing strong in our faith, sometimes we have to exercise our faith.

Sometimes that comes at the most painful, distressing times of life.

Today on a new beginning, Pastor Greg Lawry helps us get through the toughest times of our lives.

Today we'll see our faith grows as we lean hard of a Lord.

Today, today, today we'll ask for you.

Here before us in John 11, it's a story of a loved one dying.

It's a story of severe grief that accompanies the death of someone you love.

It's also a story of how Jesus reacts in such situations,

and it tells us how God can actually be glorified through difficult circumstances.

But it's also a hopeful message.

So we will remember that no matter what we're going through, God is going to be with you.

...