Greetings bloggers!
As with most spiritual practices during life in quarantine, I have engaged in a largely on-again-off-again practice of praying through Shane Claiborne’s book Common Prayer. Today featured this reading from 1 Peter:
Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? But happy are you, even if you suffer because of righteousness! Don’t be terrified or upset by them. Instead, regard Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it. Yet do this with respectful humility, maintaining a good conscience.
And to be sure, I’m not certain that anyone has asked me to speak of my hope. But in these weird days, I think a little bit of hope is what we need. So, in no particular order:
I believe that God, creator of each and every living thing on this planet, all the stars in the sky, and all the worlds in our universe, loves me. This gives me hope.
Not just that, I believe that same God loves you too. That gives me hope.
God even loves those people we can’t stand. That guy? The one who popped in to your head when you read that? God loves that guy too. That gives me hope.
While we live in a rather broken and hurting world, God has always worked through us to bring about change, reconciliation, healing, and progress. God works along side us to build his Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven, yes, even in the midst of a pandemic. This gives me hope.
I see those reconcilers on the news almost nightly now. Don’t you? The nurse who works 14+ hour shifts. The doctors working tirelessly to find a vaccine and/or a treatment. The single mother who has re-taught herself math so that she can be her child’s caregiver, recreation director, and educator. All of these people and so so many more give me hope.
I see the Church (note the capital C) being forced, sometimes excitedly and sometimes kicking and screaming, into examining creative ways to be in the world. We’re finding some stuff that never worked, some stuff that has always worked that we thought too little of, and even some brand new ideas along the way that are only going to make us stronger as we go. This gives me immense hope.
Speaking of which, I always look to those wild and crazy young people I work with. You think we’ve had to adapt? Imagine the high school senior right now, who is trying to navigate one of the most challenging seasons of life in the midst of all this chaos and upheaval. Imagine the college senior, who was doing her level best to find a job for after graduation, and is trying to do it while the world is on lockdown. I have a front row seat to some of these decisions and adaptations, and these young people are handling them with such poise and grace. This, of course, gives me hope.
I watch my own kids, who are growing up in the middle of history making change right now, and I get excited for the future we’re going to have as a people. When my guys grow up, they’re going to bring such a level of excitement and creativity and passion to everything they do. And of course as a father, this gives me nothing but hope.
I could keep going. Hope is everywhere if you look hard enough for it. And we need to look for it. So many people are pessimistic about the way things are turning out, and that’s not helpful. Worse still, some people are turning to optimism, which is the dollar store version of hope. Optimism says “maybe this thing will be gone by the fall,” while hope sits quietly yet confidently in the corner whispering “even if it is, God will continue to walk through it with you.” I am tired of pessimism, and I won’t settle for blind optimism. We need hope.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, who I was reminded in the ending of Mark’s Gospel “After the Lord Jesus spoke to them, he was lifted up into heaven and sat down on the right side of God. But they went out and proclaimed the message everywhere. The Lord worked with them, confirming the word by the signs associated with them.” The Lord worked with them.
He still does.