I am currently reading a book about St. Francis of Assisi. I didn’t grow up in a tradition that put much emphasis on the saints like some other denominations, but as I learn more about this man’s life I am truly humbled by the devotion he modeled for those who followed him in assuming a life of poverty to identify with the sufferings of Christ.
As I prepare for eleven months of living out of a backpack, leaving all the people and places that I know and love, and traveling the world to minister to people who need to experience the love of God, my desire is to prepare my heart for the mission ahead. I know that this will easily be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but right now I am just excited. I am excited to see all of these new places and witness how God is working in people’s lives around the world. I am not assuming a life of poverty like St. Francis, but it will mean a serious change in the way I live my life for at least eleven months. And I have a feeling it might affect me longer than that. There is a prayer attributed to the saint from Assisi that I have taken as my own as I get ready to launch.
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy,
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
This is my prayer for me and my team as we embark on this journey. Personally, I know how guilty I am of seeking to receive more than I give, but I want this year to be focused on how I can sow these blessings into the lives of the people we meet. And God is faithful. As the prayer says at the end, “it is in giving that we receive.” God will supply our needs as we seek to serve others.
One of the most powerful things that I desire to take to the people we work with is the gift of hope. I have had days when it was much easier to despair than hope that everything will work out, but the things did work out, even if it wasn’t necessarily how I would have chosen. I want to share that story with people who feel like things can’t change and they will be stuck in their current circumstances forever. But I also want them to know that even if nothing changes, we have a hope that lasts beyond this life. I wrote the thoughts below almost a year ago on one of those nights when I had to do what David did when he “strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6 ESV).
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Hope
Now there’s a four-lettered word if ever I heard one.
Proverbs 14:3 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
The first half of that verse explains the conventional “wisdom” of the day not to get one’s hopes up in order to avoid the bitterness of disappointment, or sickness of heart.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). And as Christians, the very thing we are to be doing is getting our hopes up. We have to build our hope, our capacity for imagination to see the world as God intends it to be, indeed as He is presently in the process of restoring it. It is vital for us to develop a sense of urgency for hope because we are to be the agents of new creation bringing hope to a world full of sick hearts.
Hope is a characteristic of prophetic leaders, of visionaries, something we are all called to be. We are to perceive God’s future in the present and set about bringing that future to pass.
Lest this all seem far too lofty for a humble layperson working a 9-5 job and just trying to make ends meet while being faithful to serve God the best he/she knows how, let’s pause for a moment and take a practical look at hope.
One of the best known passages on faith is Hebrews 11. In verse 6, the author writes that without faith it is impossible to please God. Certainly then, faith is important for every follower of Jesus to understand and aim to develop more and more. To understand faith, we go back to verse 1 where faith is defined as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Alright, there’s that pesky word again. (You thought I had gone off on a rabbit trail, didn’t you?) Hope. It is necessary for faith. Without hope, faith offers no substance. You must have a hope for faith to operate. Faith brings substance to your hopes. If you have no hope, then you have no faith, and therefore, cannot please God.
Okay, let’s take another step back before you all despair of never pleasing God ever again. I, myself, have struggled with this because looking at the world around me, I am much more inclined to cynicism than hope. But that is because the world does not offer hope. God does.
Earlier in Hebrews (chapter 6), the author declares that God has given us hope as an anchor for our souls. Our souls are our minds, our wills, our emotions, our imaginations. Our souls need to be anchored in the hope God provides of restoring and renewing His good creation through the work of His Son and the people who are led by His Spirit.
When our emotions are rocked like a ship on the sea, hope must be our anchor. When our carnal minds can’t understand the injustice still plaguing this world, hope must be our anchor. When our will is to pursue temporary relief from the pain of a broken world, hope must be our anchor. When our imaginations only conjure visions of despair, hope must be our anchor.
God has given us a great hope and a great calling to be ambassadors of its inauguration here and now. It is not an easy calling to be sure. But if we discipline our souls to make the hope of God our anchor, our hearts will be healed of their sickness and when we see the desire fulfilled, it will be a tree of life.
Reading these words that I wrote nearly a year ago, I see God working in my heart long before I knew I would be going on the World Race to put the desire in my heart to share His hope with those who desperately need it. I want to take that hope to the people of India, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. If you would like to pray for me and my team, I would encourage you to pray the prayer of Saint Francis for us, that we would be instruments of God’s hope to a world steeped in despair.
