Life can turn dark and ugly because of things that I do, or things people do to me, or just because life becomes undone. These shake the foundation and stability of the world as I know it and my dream of what I want it to be. No matter that it is my own neglect, ignorance or sin, or that people of ill intent accuse or lay in wait for me, or that life-threatening disease or natural calamity invade my world, the result is the same – a nightmarish existence that creates darkness and anguish. What control and power I think I have evaporate and life makes little sense. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Hope’ Category
Clinging with Both Hands
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010Waking to Hope
Monday, August 9th, 2010 
I love early morning. It is my favorite part of the day. I woke this morning to the spectacular New Mexico sunrise you see above. (more…)
Faith or Fear
Sunday, May 30th, 2010“Fear can hamstring the soul.” -Amy Carmichael
If we fear, we live in the gray areas of pause and regret. Fear keeps us from attempting the impossible, stepping beyond what is comfortable, choosing difficult paths, and loving in a costly manner. The opposite of fear is faith. To walk by faith means to believe the impossible can be reality, to live without what we think we must have, and to love without the prospect of returned love. While fear paralyzes and debilitates, faith liberates us to believe in and hope for what might be.
Fear comes naturally for us, and thus is not a conscious choice but our gut reaction to difficulties, disappointments and rejection. Faith, on the other hand, must be an intentional decision. To choose faith instead of fear is to live toward the hope of a better world, personal transformation, justice, love, etc. While fear destroys our hope, faith is the beginning of hope.
Because I desire to live in hope, I choose faith over my fears.
Memory as Tether
Monday, February 8th, 2010I am making an effort to read Scripture daily so that I might remember. It is so easy to forget the content of faith, commitments I have made, experiences that have shaped me, and the places where hope can be found. It is easy to forget Jesus. Reading Scripture jolts me back to ultimate realities, moves me beyond the numbing effects of daily work and activities, and reconnects me to Jesus.
Hope in the Rubble
Monday, February 1st, 2010Growing up I learned via various mediums (church, movies, books) that good and evil existed in separate realms and were color-coded. The good guys had white hats and said certain words and phrases, and the bad guys wore black hats and said the exact opposite of the good guys. And yet, I have since discovered that the world is not so clear and simple. (more…)
Steadfast hope
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Two weeks before he was burned at the stake in 1415, Jan Hus penned these words in a letter to friends…
O holy Lord Christ draw near to us, we cannot follow Thee. Give us a strong and willing spirit, and when the weakness of flesh appears, let Thy grace go on before us, accompany and follow us, accompany and follow us. For without Thee we can do nothing, least of all suffer a cruel death for Thy sake. Grant a willing spirit, a fearless heart, true faith, steadfast hope, perfect love, that for Thy sake we may, with patience and joy, surrender our life. Amen. (cited in E. Schweinitz, The History of the Church Known as the Moravian, or the Unitas Fratrum …,1901, 70)
I am not in a prison cell this morning awaiting execution, but Hus’ prayer reminds me to have a fearless heart, true faith, steadfast hope, and perfect love in the midst of whatever is outside my door or in my heart. Whether I die a cruel death or suffer through difficult change, perplexing relationships, or disappointments, a surrendered life and the accompanying presence of Christ is my only hope.
Witness to Hope
Thursday, January 29th, 2009One of my students wrote the following in a paper on the relationship of hope and mission …
Witnesses that speak of God’s power to change the lives of others, yet live in defeat, are not very convincing. With hope, we must realize that redemption is possible in all areas of our lives. In this way, we embody hope. We must also tell about this hope that we have experienced. We must utter that we have seen another way to live.
Hope and mission – the two truly go hand-in-hand. We can go through all the right motions, execute the right strategies, and follow the latest formulas, but if we do not have hope, live in hope, experience hope then our message is hollow, our actions are empty. We are to utter with hope that there is another way to live.
Dreadful
Thursday, December 4th, 2008A young seminarian directed me to these words by Søren Kierkegaard …
Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is dreadful to even be alone with the New Testament.
We often talk of the Jesus Way as if it is the ‘best life ever’ or a glorious and happy everafter. When in fact the call of God is a call to take up a cross and follow him to death and the words of Scriptures are instructions in how to live according to a different kingdom. The Jesus Way is a dreadful way, because it runs counter to my hopes of success, self-gratification, consumption, and advancement. And yet, if this dread is only theoretical talk or for the radical fringe, then Christianity is truly just another religious way with teachings and a moral code. Rather, my expereince is that when I fall into the hands of the living God and seek to live according to his kingdom, I mourn the death of my hopes and my ways, but I also rise to a new hope and new ways. Dread is prelude to becoming a transformed person with new and true hope.
By acknowledging this and writing these words, I do not escape the harsh reality of what falling into the hands of the living God will do to my appetites, habits, attitudes, comfortable lifestyle, and pet sins. The way in which Jesus calls me to walk demands that I do more than understand it or write about it. I must personally know and walk in its dreadfulness, if I am to live in its hope.
Dr. Paul Farmer
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008“But [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We do not believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches.”
-Dr. Paul Farmer, as quoted by Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a man would cure the world (2004), 40.
Pastor Yuan’s Hope
Saturday, October 4th, 2008When I am discouraged, tired, or near despair, I look at a small photograph pinned to the wall over my desk. In this photo, Pastor Allen Yuan Xiangchen and I are seated at a small table in his Beijing apartment. A friend of his had taken me down backstreets and alleyways to a nondescript building and a tiny, ground floor apartment to meet him. There was no appointment secretary, plaques of honor, pictures for sale, or adulating followers. What I found was a rather small man and his wife – two saints.
Pastor Yuan began his ministry right after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. He opened a prayer room in Beijing where he baptized new believers. Because he refused to join the state-sponsored, national church, he was arrested in 1958 and sentenced to life in prison for “counter-revolutionary crimes.” He spent the next 22 years of his life in prison doing forced labor. He had no Bible and no contact with his family during these years. Upon his release in 1979, he immediately returned to what he had been doing when arrested. People would pack his small apartment to pray and to hear Pastor Yuan teach from the Bible. He did not conceal what he was doing nor did he consider it to be “underground.” He said he no longer feared what the authorities might do to him.
During my visit, he asked one question after another about my faith and how he might pray for me. He was concerned that I live as a faithful witness to Jesus in my country and among my family and acquaintances. Toward the end of our visit, I asked him how he kept from losing hope during the years of hardship and separation from his family. He immediately responded by quoting the opening verses of Psalms 27-
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.
The face of this saint glowed with confidence as he spoke these words. In this frail body and watery eyes, I witnessed strong and vibrant hope. Years of abuse, privation, and cold had not crushed hope. His testimony was not that he had overcome his oppressors but that he had decided to hope in the Lord.
Pastor Yuan died on August 16, 2005 but his testimony lives. His testimony of hope gives me hope. His picture reminds me to choose to be confident in the One who has defeated evildoers, adversaries, enemies, and even death.