Two Weeks of Thinking

It’s been a little over two weeks since all my responsibilities at the church ended. Sure the announcement was just this last Sunday but it was a scheduled announcement so there was a bit of waiting around not being able to say anything for a while. In other words, I’ve had a bit of time to digest this stuff – to think about what should be said, how to say it, and what’s the safe way to communicate the problems encountered…

In the end it’s just fine to talk about weaknesses; to discuss the realities of depression – the need for a medication and a counselor; to talk about the constant wear of attempting to function in an area of gifting you’re not gifted with; to be real about the pain of singleness in the ministry and the damned desire to be helped and cared for.

In the end it’s safe to honestly open up about the constant drudge of being barely able to have the faith of salvation let alone the apparently necessary overt faith of a pastor, to say that I can’t run off someone else’s passion any longer.

In the end it’s okay to tell people that the only way it was possible to fall asleep at night was to try to remember what it was like in another land, when war raged all around; to listen to mix CD’s from years ago while clinging to your Bible and weeping for want of a returned hope.

In the end… In the end it’ll be right to say that the darkness was necessary and the sun shown more brightly; to remember the sting of losses and know them for what they really are - bits that had to be pruned.

Sure there’s a plan and a hope for the future, but the plan can’t be the hope. Yes, there’s a past full of wishes for something different, but wishes don’t change the past just like my future shouldn’t change my hope.

So when the time comes to bid the Shadowland goodbye, it shouldn’t be from desires for a different life or from the failed dreams I once held, but it should be from the standpoint of knowing my hope-filled-anchor to be hidden with Christ on high and thus my hope is my future and my present and my past – that is to mean in weakness, and drudgery, and fear cling to Him who does cling to you.

Re-defining Hope

A couple weeks ago I wrote about re-defining goodness, perhaps there’s a series of posts inside this “redefining” theme – or not. There’s at least this one.

"Hope," it meant something different to me as a kid than it does now.

You see, now I bank all I am on a hope. Then I would’ve hoped to go to Disney World, or whatever.

We hope for eating Oreo’s for dessert and having a good day. We hope for finding the one we love and marrying them. We hope for children who grow healthy and strong. We hope to see a good movie. Does that demonstrate the diversity of the word? Hope. (I’m not a big political guy, but I do know Obama used hope as a campaign slogan in 2008.)

Yet if we redefine it then it ought to be understood something like this, hope: an earnest expectation.

There’s a reason the symbol for hope is an anchor. Because our hope is the foundation of faith (perhaps), it will not be put to shame. It is the earnest expectation that God will do what he has promised to do and save our souls. It’s knowledge of the factual reality that God will make all things new. It’s the feeling persuasion of spiritual things. It’s what we bet all of life and all of love and all of all against that God will be God and we will be men and this is for our good.

My anchor holds within the veil.

So hope isn’t just a want or desire for something to happen or change – no – it’s an expectation that it will change and it will happen. And the expectation is of such a fervently firm nature that we are willing to plan the rest of today (cause that’s all we’re semi-sure of) and dare to plan 80 years of life upon.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.