hope

"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." Rom. 15:13

I long for us all to have more hope. This has been on my heart so much lately.  Maybe it is the warmer temperatures, the sounds of birds singing in the morning and the reality that (finally!) real spring is here. Spring is all about hope after all.  You can't miss it.  February does its best to have us believing that winter will never end, but then spring comes gently, and always with the promise of new life, growth, and a reason for hope.

I have been reading in Lamentations.  This is unusual because my default is to skip the sad stuff and jump right to the worship of the Psalms or the stretch and challenge of the New Testament.  But Lamentations, I have recently discovered, is a story of hope.  Here is an account of sorrow, deep discouragement, and pain that rivals Job’s, but not for just one person - for an entire nation.  The author of the book appropriately laments it all.  Then this statement of faith-filled certainty in the worst of circumstances leaves me undone:  

“Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope.  Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end.  They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness!  I say, ‘The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.’” Lam. 3: 22-24 

If you read Lamentations you will see that it is quite okay to put words to your pain.  Say it out loud.  Life is hard, and we get wounded.  It is not easy to be joyful when circumstances break our hearts.

 

The next thing you will see, is that the breaking is not the end.  I know it can feel like it.  Sorrow and heartache refine us, however.  They strengthen us and fill us with hope if we let them.

In Romans, Paul speaks about the reality of suffering in a way that gives believers courage.  Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can “glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3-5).  

The same passage in the Message describes the hope-filled life as one of “alert expectancy”.  Don’t you just love that?  This hope, this alert expectancy,  is so much more than positive thinking, dreaming or wishing that good things will happen.   

It is rock solid certainty that God will not disappoint us.  

There is no prosperity gospel here, and I am sorry if you have heard that God's simple plan is to keep you happy and comfortable, and that there is something wrong with your faith if you are not.  He wants you holy and courageous and completely dependent on Him.  The truth is that tough times are the path to perseverance, character and hope.  There are the very things that grow our faith and are part of God's plan to transform us into the image of Jesus.  

Hope is the quality that should define every person who follows Jesus wholeheartedly.  We do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Friends, we cannot live as those who have no hope either.   

Here things get real.  Our life and attitude should attract others to Christ.  Paul says this clearly:    “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).  The early believers were characterized by radical hope that created curiosity among those they came into contact with, got people talking, and ultimately brought them to saving faith.  They had to be ready with an answer because questions were a guarantee.   Their joy had no explanation other than Jesus. Their hope had no source other than the finished work of Christ.

  

I have to ask it:  Why don’t people ask us more about the hope that we have?  John Piper writes that the answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. 

The author of Lamentations writes “Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope.”  What he calls to mind is the “Lord’s faithful love”.  The circumstances were not overflowing with blessing the way we can assume ‘blessing’ will look.  Yours may not be either.  God does not call us to what is easy.  He does call us to faithful, joyful hope.  Can I encourage you to call some things to mind?

 

God is with you, you are not alone.   

God has a purpose for your life.    

He is good.  He is faithful.   

His grace is for you, and His mercies are new every day. 

 

hockey

I am going to make a rather huge confession.  I don’t like hockey.  

I don’t hate it, I just don’t understand all the intensity with which the guys in my house holler at the television and debate the trades.  I go watch a game once or twice a season but my husband is well aware that I am there to hold hands, and eat the snacks, and that there will absolutely be a book in my purse.

In grade twelve, the cutest guy in my class asked me if I liked hockey and if I wanted to go to a game with him.  Well, that changed things.  I professed great love for the sport and between when my bus got home from school and I was picked up for my date, my sweet Dad did the best he could to save me from revealing my ignorance.  I can still remember him laughing as I ran out the door, “they are not quarters, honey, they are periods!”  Unfortunately, the new attraction to hockey didn’t really last.

This week hockey brought Canada together.  This week, we have been in community.  With sticks on our porches and jerseys on our backs, a nation has grieved as one.  And yet, it is not hockey at all that united us.  It is instead, grief for lost sons and deep humanness, that though we cannot change the situation, says you are not alone in your sorrow.

Alone is how the enemy would have us.  Brokenness and division is his specialty. 

Community has always been the message of God.  “Alone” God declared to be “not good” (Gen 2:18).  Our covenant-keeping God through the pages of Scripture calls us again and again to be in community with each other and community with Him.  He reminds us that we are not meant to be alone.  He restores what is broken; He heals what is hurting.  When our sin separated us from God, Jesus gave his own life to bridge that gap and create community with us. 

Our stories are different, but our hearts feel the same.  We know no one is immune to hard times.  We have our own stories of death, of loss.  There can be pain so deep we have no words.  There can be hurt we may never understand.  Yet, there is One who stands beside us, whose very name means, ‘God is with Us’.  

See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God is with us’. Matthew 1:23

Jesus came so we could have a home with Him forever in heaven, and yet I find it interesting that the message here is not “us with God”.  It is “God with us”.  He does not always pull us out of our pain, but stands right in it with us.  He is not watching from afar.  He is our hope in the hurt.  He is here - with us in our waiting, with us in our pain, with us in our sorrow.

 

The book of Matthew is an account of Jesus Messiah, his life, his death and resurrection.  But the bookends to the gospel are the message of Immanuel.  The very last words of Jesus are a reminder to the disciples that they do not walk alone.  

It is a reminder to us, as well.
 

“Remember, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Matthew 28:20

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Humboldt would be for us to walk away unchanged, back to our isolation, back to our apathy, and back to carrying our pain alone.  

Let this week remind us all that time is short, loved ones are a gift to be cherished, and we were never supposed to spend so much time pretending everything is perfect.  We are all a little broken, after all. 

That is why we have Immanuel - God with us.

a change of mind

Comments from my parents spoken during my growing up years still swirl inside my mind most days and have been known to fall out in my own conversations.  A funny thing that is.  I have lived on my own longer than we lived together, Mom and Dad, the boys and I, but many simple conversations during my childhood remain with me.   My young mind simply took the words captive. 

It’s humbling, as I consider the value of my own words hastily spoken in the course of a day.  And the hardest part is, you never quite know what words will be the ones to sink in deep.  Parenting is tricky that way.  Children never remember just the things you wish they did.

From my Mom: “Pray about it, sweetie.”  That was a regular reminder that I had more power than my own at my disposal.  This truth has guided me like a well-worn path.

My Dad would tell me, “If someone else can figure that out, you sure can.”  Most of the time those words give me courage and serve me well.  Only once, they nearly got me electrocuted, as I repeated them over and over on the top of a ladder changing a light fixture (with the power still on). 

When I face a challenge that seems too big for me, or a puzzle I can’t figure out, it is Dad’s relentless encouragement that I still hear and my Mama’s reminder to bring it to Jesus. 

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

This passage has been both a quiet, sacred reminder, and at times, a battle cry.  Few verses have convicted my heart and softened it for change more than this.  To have every thought obedient to Christ?  I long for it to be so. 

Scripture tells us we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2).  If we were sitting for coffee together today, I would tell you that there is nothing either of us need more than this.  Because, when our minds are transformed, our eyes are as well.  We can then see people more like Jesus sees them. 

 

The hard truth gets real here for a minute:

You will find what you look for.

If you keep finding negative things in someone you care about, things that just confirm thoughts you already have, well, it is time for a change of mind.   Time to unload some courage and intention to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Paul knew that there was a need for some practical help here.  In his personal letter to the Philippians, he writes: 

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Phil. 4:8

Paul longed for the early church to understand genuine Christian commitment and what it meant for them to live like Christ. He encourages their transformation by encouraging them to rejoice, to be grateful and to pray (Phil.4:4-10). The instruction still works for you and I.  

Pure joy, especially through difficult circumstances, is a clear testimony about the Joy-giver.  Remembering God's goodness, faithfulness and sovereignty clears through the doubt and gives us reason to be hopeful and reason to be grateful.  Prayer takes us from the best that we can do and moves us into the realm of all that God can do.  Impossible situations are his specialty.

Finally, time in the word changes us with truth.  It is the best and only way I know to trade worry, doubt, irritability and fear for peace, hope and surrender. 

I have set my mind on Christ.  He has my full attention.  I am choosing gratitude, choosing joy, choosing kindness.  I want to be renewed by prayer and time in God's word.   I want the goodness of God to transform me so that I might love the Lord with all my heart, soul, strength…  

and to love him at last, with all of my mind.