Tag Archives: hope

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Peace and Hope

Romans 5 (NIV)

5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies,we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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Keep Dreaming

When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die. – Eugene May

A mindset doesn’t happen accidentally. It takes a conscious effort to view today as temporal, and stay hopeful for tomorrow.

The present can be overwhelming, a metaphorical season of drought, harsh winter, or severe flooding. You might find yourself hampered by frustrating or debilitating conditions.

Or, maybe you were overcome by your yesterdays. Cumulative trauma, failures, tragedies, or injustices had an affect on your outlook. Bad events outnumbered the good, enough to induce an expectation of more bad ahead. Sometime during all that hardship, your dreams were buried.

It’s understandable that people surrender dreams and default to memories to fill the void. There are few things more excruciating than rallying to try again, to hope again, to end the vicious cycle, only to be met with more disappointment. When dreams cause pain, memories offer solace.

But, When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die.

breaking-prairie-sod-3536The American pioneers plowed land for a purpose: for food, for survival. It was hard work to break the sod, plant a crop, and keep the plot from reverting to prairie. As long as they worked the land, they improved their odds for an ample harvest. If they quit, the surrounding indigenous plants encroached until the farmed plot succumbed.

It takes work to maintain a healthy mindset, too. If you don’t keep your dreams and hopes for a good future alive, your mind can be overtaken by your past. Instead of forging the best possible future, you can cause your own stagnancy. Instead of being a plowed field able to support a healthy crop, yours can revert to weeds.

Genesis 8:22 (ESV) “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Keep dreaming, so when your drought, flooding, or winter ends — as they always do — your sod is already broken, inertia is overcome, and your momentum is forward.

Keep dreaming, so when your spring arrives, you are primed and ready to fully engage in it.

From Song of Solomon:

11 See! The winter is past;
    the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.

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Personal Landslide

We all know people who don’t want to face the world on a given day. They are tired of being stepped on, and generally sick of the crap of life. Some are overwhelmed by the state of society—”The world is evil; there’s no point; evil is winning”—while some are direct targets of crushing injustice.

In either case, we hear it in their anger. It is evident in their depression. It has become personal. They’re buried under it.

To all those in a state of defeat, worry, frustration, reactive anger, or agony, know that hope is alive somewhere under the rubble. Love is in there too. Faith is recoverable beneath your personal landslide. We hear its life, its breath, its cry for mercy. 

It’s true that corruption and oppression are real, powerful, suffocating, and sometimes deadly. But it hasn’t won. You’re not done breathing. You’re not done with faith, hope, and love. Those three have not flat-lined.

For all those not presently buried, help those who are. It was us yesterday; it could be us tomorrow. Dig to rescue those who are struggling for breath. Shovel the weighty debris off their backs. Get on hands and knees, and push aside the dirt and clay until victims have access to air, to faith, to hope, to love.

Together, let’s resuscitate faith, hope, and love. Those three do remain in people as individuals, and among humanity collectively.

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Photo by Roman Apaza on Pexels.com