Luke 21:25 - 36
Harlee opened our Advent season by introducing us to the theme of hope. He spoke of his (misplaced) hope that the Canberra Raiders would one year win the NRL grand final. Whilst he'd like to see this happen, he assured us that this is not the hope that we as Christians have. Our hope is not in some possible future event that may or may not happen. Rather our hope is grounded in the promises of God and what he will do. This promise is expressed in places like Revelation 21.
Whilst we wait for the coming of this future, the question though is how we live now. We are not to "duck and cover", fearing the world and avoiding it. Rather, we are to live with confidence that the future of God has broken into our present reality as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this confidence we stand against the hopeless situations that many people face in this world.
Where do you put your hope? We all put it in something, is it something that is worthwhile?
Misplaced hope, like misplaced values, is most unfortunate, because it focuses our attention in useless directions, wasting valuable “life experience”. Experiences of late, have caused me to reflect and ponder many things from the past, where I realize now, that I had inadvertently wasted a great deal of time on false hopes and values. One of the disturbing consequences of which, is that many of the hopes I entertain now and which now seem utterly impossible to attain, were at my finger tips for the taking, many years ago and I know now that I was too blind then to recognize their “value”.
ReplyDeleteLike the blogs before this, maybe it would be better to cast this blog in terms of “Hope Beyond Misplaced Hope”. Hope has an uncanny potential to frustrate, especially if they appear likely to remain unfulfilled and moreover, tend to be elusive, as I have found. Repeated loss of hope, can be damaging, for it generates despair and frustration and regrettably, can cast an ominous cloud over faith. So how does one address that kind of serious damage to one’s journey, especially if one has tried so hard to keep one’s hopes alive? Maybe it’s a case of turning inwards, to find an inner peace an inner wisdom, in communion with the Spirit within us, in order that the hopes we cherish, are right for us and worthy of becoming a reality.
All I can say for now, is that like so many of us, I have experienced dashed hopes, false hopes and ruined expectations, and it sometimes feels as if my faith has taken a severe bruising. Such experiences only confuse and make faith just that much more difficult to endure. But out of the experience I had years ago, I am compelled to believe we have to be more attentive to the relationship we have with Christ, because it could well be a damaged relationship. For the answer to our hopes or the hopes that might be of value and more appropriate for us, may well be right there in front of us, right at our finger tips. But we have to be able to recognize them for what they are and that takes far more than wishful thinking.
Regards
Mal L.