"But for a Moment"

It's maybe not the most hopeful-sounding hope, but on dark hard days at the end of long hard months, it is one of the things that I hold onto.  It is one of the things that I think "hope" consistently refers to in the Bible.

This cannot last forever.  And the most I experience of all of this yucky temporary stuff is this lifetime.  The hard, the pain, the tears, the waiting, the not knowing how it will turn out - will be washed away and redeemed.  If not tomorrow, then at least at the end of our earth.  Jesus comes back, rules righteously, defeats the adversary, and re-creates the world with no death nor sorrow nor crying.

God has been able to sustain me and my hope these long months.  It is He who will sustain me each day as long as I must.  It is He who has promised that the End is good.  The End is more glorious than the sufferings are heavy.

"Therefore we 

do not 

lose heart. 

Even though our outward man is perishing, 

yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 

is working for us 

a far more exceeding 

and eternal 

weight of glory, 

while we do not look at the things which are seen, 

but at the things which are not seen. 

For the things which are seen are temporary, 

but the things which are not seen are 

eternal." 

~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

As a friend reminded me this week,

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time 

are not worthy 

to be compared with the glory 

which shall be revealed in us. 

For the earnest expectation of the creation 

eagerly 

waits 

for the revealing of the sons of God." 

~ Romans 8:18-19

Joshua and Kid Goats

My friend Christa has a baby named Joshua, and I have a pair of goats.  Each will bring us to tears.  Each has been God's crystal-clear message of an agonizing truth: Sometimes God does say yes.  And even if He doesn't, we can still trust Him.  We must trust Him.  There's no other way to get good.

My friend Christa doesn't have a baby named Joshua.  He's someone else's baby, a baby who lived when odds said he should die.  A baby who lived when she thought she might have to walk the paths of grief with this mom, too.  A baby who keeps on living.  Whose name means "God saves".

The goats aren't mine, either.  They're Ann Voskamp's daughter's goats.  And I read their story first when I'd been parched for days, aching over the hope that I was scared to feel, doubting that God ever did anything good in a world with so much pain.  I read the story of the missing goat, of the child's faith, and when the sky cried, broken over the beautiful gift of God to the trust this family persisted in, I broke, too, dumping out emotion held back for weeks, and I knew it in a way I wouldn't forget.  I had to hope because there is a God who says yes, a God who does good.  Until that God says "no", I'll hope for what He has said, for what I need, for what I continue to desire.

My friend Christa and I have hope.  We have tears.  We have loss.  We have uncertainty.  But we have a God who does good.

A Greater Story

"Hope is not the same as optimism, the pastor pointed out.

Optimism has its place,

but it is at its core the name given to a way of looking at things.

The glass is either half full or half empty–our opinion of it doesn’t change the amount of water in the cup.

Sure, it changes our disposition, and of course an optimistic one is the better of the two.

But Hope goes deeper.

Hope gives thanks that there is such a thing as water,

and remembers that whether the glass is empty or full,

there is a greater story being told.

If there is water in the glass, then somewhere beneath the earth,

in cathedral caverns where no eye has yet seen,

a clear river courses.

I may cry out in pain or sorrow (which seems to me anything but optimistic),

and yet have hope, though I cling to it feebly."

~ Andrew Peterson

When Obedience Brings Trouble

God, speaking out of a burning bush that isn't consumed, confirming His word to Moses by miraculous signs, says to go to Egypt, to deliver the people of Israel from Pharaoh.

Moses obeys.  He doesn't just obey in going; he obeys along the way.  When he gets there, God tells him what to say to Pharaoh, and that is what he says.

Only the oppressed people aren't delivered.  They come to Moses, complaining that because of him, Pharaoh had increased the burden on their slavery.  Moses' obedience brought suffering.

So Moses goes to God, which is the right thing to do in such a circumstance, but he's confused, and discouraged, too.  Didn't God say He would deliver?  Why is God's plan bringing trouble to His people instead?

But God persists, and Moses continues to obey, and by way of a long and not-very-pleasant process, God's people receive their hope of deliverance, plundering Egypt as they go.

God did some wondrous things in the Ten Plagues, and in parting the Red Sea.  He got glory.  The people learned about who He was.  We still know the stories, thousands of years later, and so we can know these things about God, too.

Seventh Submersion

Naaman was a man who had leprosy, a dreaded and incurable disease in his day.  Through his slave girl, he heard about the prophet of YHWH, so he inquired of the man whether God would heal him.

The prophet told him that he would be healed, that the means by which God would accomplish this miracle would be Naaman cleansing himself seven times in the River Jordan.  And the prophet didn't go with him, only his servants to exhort him to heed the word of God's prophet, to believe it, to receive his healing.

At first Naaman was angry, because he wanted God to heal him on his terms, or at least to negotiate.  But he relented, and went to the Jordan.

And can you imagine how it would be, to dip once, twice, three times - with no effect?  To already think it is a fool's hope, and a silly, humiliating display to be washing in a river, hoping it will rinse away the disease?  Seven times, God said; seven times Naaman persisted in obedient hope, and seven times it took.  And then God's miracle was accomplished.

Peace Will Reign

I know some people who want to be martyred.  Not me.  Torture?  Rather not.  Suffering is not something I ask for.  I've told God that I don't want to ask for it, so if it's something I'm supposed to ask for, He'll have to bring me to that place of willingness.  But I won't avoid suffering by doing something I don't believe in.

So sometimes I imagine what the people being imprisoned, kidnapped, murdered, martyred go through; and when I pray for them, I don't always pray for physical deliverance.  But I hope, somehow, that God's comforting presence will shield them from the pain, the emotion, the mental torment; that peace will reign, and the joy set before them. 

And it's my philosophy, that God is able to do that, in the midst of hard times: to overwhelm us with His love.  I count on it for my own trials, light as they may be by comparison.  I feel hopeful that God's love will envelope me, and enable me to bear with grace the hard things that come.  And, of course, I hope that God's love will enable me to dance with grace, rejoicing in good things that come.  

Because Jesus is Something Special

"We’ve given our all, all night long 

and it hasn’t been enough. 

We’re tired, and we don’t want to try again. Not even one more time. 

But because you seem to be something special, 

we will."

~ Brooke McGlothin
a study in hope from Luke 5

Teach Her to Pray with Open Hands

Baby wouldn’t eat the other day.  

She woke up early in the morning and screamed and screamed, 

but wouldn’t eat, and nothing would console her until she finally just cried herself back to sleep.  

I woke her in the morning to try to feed her, but she wouldn’t eat.  

Again an hour later, and an hour later, and again.  

Finally at 12 o’clock, nearly 12 hours since she ate last, 

I sat with her in my lap 

and I told her about that verse in Isaiah…

My friend spoke quiet, this strange new combination of my old friend and a mommy: skirt, t-shirt, bare feet, curled up on a couch, but face alive with a story of God, and love, and hope.  I kept myself in anticipation of the verse she would describe.  What did she tell her baby? 

“Sometimes God wants us to be sick for some purpose, 

and maybe He wants to teach us something, 

but this verse says that Jesus came to take our sicknesses, 

so let’s ask Him, baby, to make you better.” 

So we prayed, 

and an hour later she ate just like normal, 

she ate very well, and she hasn’t had any trouble since.

I don’t know how to do it, but I want to teach her to pray with open hands. 

This friend, more than any other, makes me cry.  Something about God’s work in her goes deep into my heart and makes me ache with the goodness of it.  He has taught her to pray, to dare to ask, to dare to hope, to surrender it all in the same prayer she asks with. 

I hear some of her prayers for her daughter.  I know that God has given some of the prayers, and I trust He will answer them.  There is a fire in her, and her husband with her, to raise their daughter in what God is teaching them: faith that is humble, determined, kind, hopeful, surrendered.  I hope I get to know this little girl as she grows up, because I want to be friends with her: a girl who has known these truths about God from such a young age, who will, by God’s grace, be a rare young woman.