I was talking with someone who has decided not to hope any more. “Why?” I asked. “Because when the hope is unfulfilled, it hurts too much, so it’s better not to hope.”
There’s something wrong with that. But I understand it.
Proverbs 13:12
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy.”
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
“but when dreams come true, there is life and joy”
I want to talk about hope a bit today. And I want to start in the Psalms.
Psalm 33:13-22
13 The LORD looks down from heaven
and sees the whole human race.
14 From his throne he observes
all who live on the earth.
15 He made their hearts,
so he understands everything they do.
16 The best-equipped army cannot save a king,
nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.
17 Don't count on your warhorse to give you victory-- for all its strength, it cannot save you.
God has a wonderful perspective of us and our little things. Nothing is hidden from his eternal, creating eyes.
He is able to see the whole human race, every heart, every mind, every one of our thousand secrets.
He’s able to see your motivations, that indeed you meant well even if it didn’t come out as you had hoped.
He created the hearts of men and women, to beat and beat and beat and give them life and breath. And Hopes and Dreams.
So, it says, “He understands”. Like no one else in creation.
He understands our desires. He understands our wishes. He understands our hopes. He understands our dreams.
He understands, and wants to remind us that sometimes our perspective isn’t great. Sometimes we can only see from here to the other side of the room. He see’s into eternity.
See, we often place our hope in the wrong things.
He reminds us...
A powerful army isn’t strong enough for a king. A good horse won’t give you victory, it can’t save you.
Strength won’t save us, neither will might.
The health system, blessed as we are to have it, won’t save us.
The government can’t save us.
We place our hopes in these powerless things.
We hope in due process. In the legal system.
We hope in our money, to provide a way out.
We hope in others to help us out.
We hope a relationship will work out.
We hope for a great job.
We hope in our children to make the right choices.
We hope for great presents.
We hope in our parents, to be perfect.
We hope that the pastor will have some answers.
We hope to roll up the rim and win!
Yet John 16:33 says "In me you will have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world."
Take Heart!
What happens when our strength isn’t enough? When our armies fail and our warhorses are not enough? What happens when hope fails and is deferred?
Lets continue in Psalm 33
18 But the LORD watches over those who fear him,
those who rely on his unfailing love.
19 He rescues them from death
and keeps them alive in times of famine.
Remember the one who’s perspective is from eternity?
The one who see’s everyone, who knows your heart?
He says he will watch over those who respect Him.
Those of you who rely on his unfailing love.
He will rescue you from the anguish of death. He will keep you from eternal death, and provide you with eternal life.
And, he will keep you as you live through seasons of famine. Not just physical hunger, but emotional hunger, spiritual dryness.
He won’t always stop the famine from coming, but he is able to keep you alive through it!!!
He won’t always stop the illness, or the poverty, or the joblessness, or the dryness. But he can keep you alive through it.
He will walk with you through the hopelessness. Through the heartsickness of unanswered hope.
You see, often we place our hopes in the things that can’t save us. In the temporary things that we can’t change. In our power and might.
We may even place our hope in Christ to change the story, the situation, yet that may not be the very best for us.
When our hope is deferred...
When it feels like God has not heard us...
We have 2 choices.
1. Get bitter
-Get angry. At God and humanity. And yourself.
-Never hope again because it always fails you anyway.
Or
2. Trust in God. Refocus your hope.
Remember, the one who loves you, who knows you, who made you.
When hope fails, we need to raise it up a level.
PSALM 33
20 We depend on the LORD alone to save us.
Only he can help us, protecting us like a shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we are trusting in his holy name.
22 Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone.
When our only hope is in man’s strength and ability, and that fails, it means we’ve been aiming to low. We need to lift our focus higher.
Only He can help us. Only He can protect us as life goes on all around us.
Because our hearts rejoice in him. They find life and meaning in knowing Him.
A few weeks ago I attended the funeral of a friend who had been ill for some time.
1970's heart attack. Heart disease for years.
Put on a heart transplant list, became too ill for that.
As he was dying, and his human hope was deferred a final time, he was able to rejoice and be glad. Because he knew the one who knew him. He trusted in God and his heart rejoiced.
For his family too. The funeral was a real, true celebration of hope. And Gods faithfulness through life and in death.
This is how it is possible for those who have experienced tremendous brokenness and hopelessness, to actually rejoice and be glad. Because they knew the maker of their hearts.
Where is your true hope? In the things of this earth? Or in the things of Heaven?
Have you had hope deferred, even by God? He who knows and created your human heart understands.
Lift up your eyes, your broken hearts.
Trust the one with the higher perspective. Trust in God.
A question I've asked quite a bit internally recently is if God won't save us in the ordinary physical world, how can we trust Him to save us in the supernatural world. Slightly mangling the new testament, Jesus said that even if we didn't believe Him because of the things He said, we should believe Him because of the things he did. If He apparently doesn't do stuff then it makes the words the stuff would support a little less solid.
ReplyDeleteFeel free not to release this comment - I won't be offended.
Thats a legit question Toni. I need to think on it some. I sometimes wonder what it means for him to save me in this world, and what I need saving from. Do I need saving from this world? From its treatment of me or its attitude about me? I'm not sure always. Often I need saving from me, and he seems to do that. His words ring in my troubled spirit, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world."
ReplyDeleteTake heart my friend.
When one is faced with a terrible situation, and the end of the line is your next stop, one really learns about hope. When we are faced with odds that are against us, we learn about hope. When doctors tell you that you are going to die, go home, kiss your ass goodbye, and wait to die …
ReplyDeleteYou learn what hope is. Because before you get there, hopelessness really does set in, because there is no light at the end of the tunnel. And the light you do see, is the train coming at you, at 100 miles per hour.
Before hope sets in, if the odds are really dire, you think to yourself, that “no, I’m not gonna die that way, so I am going to take matters into my own hands, and do what I think is best for me.” ” No, I am gonna kill myself, my own way, so as to defer sickness and pain, in the short term.”
Then, GOD steps out of Heaven, and says … STOP !
Heaven is always respectful of our free will. Heaven never pushes itself on us, but holds its breath, to see which way we will choose ?
I had two choices. I could STOP, or I could go to the bitter end, and blot out the suffering, until Death did come for me, on my twisted terms.
I know God. I’ve met Him. I walked with Him, and I communed with Him.
God had other ideas. Hope was not one of them, because there was no hope. True, I was gonna die, sooner or later. I knew that. But words were spoken, out of love and compassion.
Those words told me that I did have a choice, about how I was going to attack death, and live to tell the story. That was he decision I made.
God was there. I was not alone. All I needed to do was follow directions.
Now, you might ask, how did you find the path to hope ? I didn’t.
I don’t know how you bounce back from being told, “You are going to die, there is no hope, so get on the ride, and ride it.”
Sometimes, when you are marked for death, there is no return. Sadly, the percentages of life after death diagnosis are slim. I’ve seen both sides of this coin in as many years. I know, that sometimes people die. That illness and sickness is capricious.
I can tell you what I did, every day.
Inside the four walls of the bar I worked in, was a safe space. The good thing about psychology is this, “sometimes it works.”
I had much going on in my mind at that time. Worries that were beyond my capacity to grasp them. I had serious issues. Death, was just one of them. My alcoholism was the other. I had to attack BOTH at the same time.
Needless to say, life had become Hopeless.
I was not moaning over the fact that I could not drink any longer. Once I got passed the point of acceptance, drinking became a non issue. I was working in the belly of the beast, in a BAR, for God’s sake.
Jeremy Part 2-
ReplyDeleteReally, death was the only dance I had to dance.
I had to start stacking alive days. So we could say, in Jimmy Settle terms, was that July 8th 1994, was my first death day.
Every day forwards would become another “death day.”
I came to work. But the day this all began, it was a challenge. I was loved, and that’s what mattered. I was told that I could follow directions, and if I did, I would live. I was down for that from the get go, no matter how hard I battled against my worse nature, because I kicked and screamed and cried an awful lot, in those first few months.
But I listened to advice, and I did what I was told. And every day that I lived, I trusted in the advice given. Come to work. Leave the baggage of the outside world, OUTSIDE the door. When you cross the threshold, the only thing you need to think about, is the job you are given, on any given night, and ONLY that.
Getting to shut off my brain, for a few hours, on a nightly basis, worked.
I did not have to think about dying, inside. Because I watched it come for everybody else around me, in the patrons who were sick, who patronized the bar I worked in.
They all Died. I survived them all.
I stacked enough days, that when I got to my literal “death day,” and I was still alive, I went on with life. I don’t think you can call this hope, because, I was still very sick, and death, was still a “Clear and Present Danger.”
When you live with “Clear and Present Danger” one learns how to govern expectations, and life itself.
I have twenty five years of living with Clear and Present Danger.
I take nothing for granted.
I’m no longer hopeless. I don’t suffer from a three fold disease, Mental, Physical and Spiritual disease. Alcoholism is an every day job. Living is a bit higher on that list. As long as I live, and I don’t drink today, I have a fighting chance.
If I take my will back and decide that I am going to go it alone, I am literally FUCKED !!!
I know God. I’ve met Him. If I close my eyes, and sit still and be quiet, I can see Him in my minds eye, and I can even hear His voice.
I’m alive. And if you find hope in this story, then I did my job.
Hope comes, when you stack enough ALIVE DAYS together, and you live, longer than you thought you would, not only does hope come, but more importantly, GRATITUDE comes.
Gratitude does amazing things when you have no hope. Because if you can be grateful for one thing a day, there is hope.
You cannot have hope and NOT be grateful, because a by product of gratitude is hope.
That is my story and I am sticking to it.
Thanks Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteI hope your experience can help some others who might find themselves in similar places. Life just isn't a nice little package all wrapped up for us to open and play with and enjoy. Its complex and deep and shallow and easy and challenging and all wrapped up in challenges. We look for meaning and try to create our own and someone comes along with a gift for us. The gift is grace and love and we with our pieces of life, become undone. Thanks for your story Jer.