Hope

For quite a while I had found my heart in a miserable state of thinking. Where once my heart hoped for the future and dreamt of what would be, in had crept a bitterness without my even knowing.


When I heard myself thinking things like, "It's nice to dream as a youth, but as an adult you face reality," and "I guess this is just a part growing up," something in me ached. I recognized that something was wrong with this way of thinking, but it also felt right in the moment and so I didn't question it. Instead I let it permeate my life and influence my decisions, which only reinforced that very notion of the mundane lack luster existence.

I had lost sight of hope.
I had misplaced my hope.
Maybe you can relate?

Maybe you too felt like dreaming was wasted, because now you must work to no end. You work to make money, but it feels insignificant. Feels like a waste, but what else are you to do? The words of Psalms 39:6-7 sparked something in me, bringing me back to life.

"We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it. And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.


So returning our hope to God alone is the key. My hope does not lie in what I do, or what I cannot do, it doesn't lie even in the dreams and hopes themselves, or in the future at all. My hope is now, my hope is Christ and yours is too.


In Ecclesiastes, amidst a monologue of the depressing conclusion of the meaningless fate of all being death, it says  "there is hope only for the living." And what hope we have that we, Gods children, have been granted life. "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me." (John 10:28)


It is is easy for us to think of our eternal hopes in Christ. That seemed the point of our salvation right? To not go to Hell when we die, but rather spend eternity with God in Heaven? 


But there is so much more to hope and eternal life than what happens at the end. The truth is that the moment you accept Christ, you are a new creation....no longer spiritually dead, but alive in Christ. That means that you don't have to wait until you die physically, to enter into eternal life with God. The veil in the temple that separated the sinners from the Holy Presence of God was torn in this world, this life so that you and I could live the rest of our earthly life and beyond with God and unto God. 


This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)


 That means that the moment we made Jesus our Lord and accepted His forgiveness, we entered into eternal life. It is now.


So how does that connect to the  beginning of this post? I'm glad you asked. 

Here it is: if my hope is in Christ, and not just eternity in the after earthly death sense of the word, but the one in which my eternity started the moment that I accepted Him, then my hope is alive. It is in a God who stands beside me today, not just later. And that means that I am not confounded to a boring, mundane life without dreams without future...it means i have entered into an ordained life full of purpose, full of possibility, full of hope because the God of all creation is living in me, walking next to me, and going before me from right now into eternity.


When we move our hope, or lack there of, from what we can do, what we can see, what we can dream, and place it back onto the living God that gives us our purpose, there is no dream too big, and no task too small. Suddenly the future is bright, and the "mundane" life in front of us full of opportunity. 


This weekend my pastor said that when our confidence is in ourselves...there isn't much confidence...but when our confidence is in God, we stand in Godly confidence that anything is possible. He opened the message with a prayer that I think we ought to pray every morning to remind us just where our hope lies,
"For me, there are many things that are impossible, but for You, God, there is nothing that is impossible."

 

 

-Court