today i went on a bike ride with a new friend. our conversation came to the loss of hope in life. this was at the beginning of the ride. and i rode those 3 hours thinking a lot about this reality.
we all experience loss. we all experience pain..physical, emotional, all kinds of pain. we all experience hopelessness. a loss of interest in living. a loss of reason for living. a loss of purpose.
it is real. we cant ignore this. so, my mind began to spin with ideas of how to address it. what to look for. how to bring hope back into the hearts of people who have lost it. how to regain purpose. dignity. reason to keep moving. when you have lost it.
the thing is i think we all find hope outside of ourselves. we cannot find it inside us. not first anyway. there has to be an outside source of hope. for me it is God. it is His redemption. it is His promise. His covenant. His faithfulness. His love dispite this worlds hatred. His mercy despite this worlds judgement. His freedom despite this worlds chains. He is our hope. He is our peace. He is everything we need.
but what if we dont know Him. what if we think we dont need Him. what if we are confused about who He is? what if only have ourselves? where can we find hope. where can we regain a reason to live?
not from ourselves. it has to be from someone else. from children in africa whose parents have died of AIDS and they are now orphans. we find hope from their smile. we find hope in their dreams. we find hope in their innocent eyes that tell us there is more to life. there cant be just us from nothing returning to nothing. there is something. and we are a part of that something. there is hope. and a reason to live. even if none of us know for sure what that reason is. we all feel it.
unless we have let ourselves stop seeing a reason to hope. unless we have experienced loss or pain and we have not coped with it. when we do not address issues, they stay issues. and while it is hard. beyond hard. heart wrenching sometimes. like the orphan who smiles. we have to find that smile. we have to move. we have to walk. we have to know that this time on the earth, where there is pain, sorrow, loss, choas, monstrousities like human traffiking, diseases, lack of access to basic necessities, selfishness, murder, and even just death. where there is sorrow there is also hope. there is "hope in the dark".
and we may not see it because we focus on the suffering as if we are alone in it. we are not alone. this is very true for us as followers of Christ. because in Christ there is family. acts 17:26 says we were all made from one blood. they same blood runs through us all. and we have been adopted into a family of hope.
and without Christ? the peace that hope brings cannot truly come. i dont think i am right about everything in life. but i think i am right about this. when there is hopelesness. there is not Christ.
when there is Christ there is reason to live. dignity. hope. movement. even in the midst of suffering, death, pain. things i cannot even begin to understand. i know there is hope because i see it in the faces of orphans who smile. and that brings me hope. and it makes me move. and share this hope. and bring this peace to the hearts of those who dont have it. what an incredible gift. i could never have deserved, no matter what i do.
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