“In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:4-5). When “the darkness has not understood it” is stated this means that the darkness of evil never has and never will overcome or extinguish God’s light. When we follow Jesus, the true Light, we can avoid walking blindly and fall into darkness because He removes the darkness from our lives!
What greater hope can we have in this life than that fact that darkness will never extinguish God’s light, the light inside of us? When we choose God we are choosing love, we are choosing to have hope in our lives. "Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon" (Donald Miller). It’s a decision and a choice to accept all that God has to offer and when we do, He is filled with so much joy for He now has a new son or daughter in His family. He welcomes you with open arms and says, “Welcome home, you once were lost but now you have been found!” (reference to Luke 15:20 and 24).
We can have a magnificent obsession with an eternal hope, a hope that does not lead to an escapist attitude, but to the pursuit of a life on a whole new dimension and direction. It gives us power to live courageously and to be all God has called us to be in Christ.
This month in Cambodia I am teaching English at a ministry called Light of Hope, and the man running it, Vuthy, has the most hope that I have seen in anyone that the vision he got from God will come true. In this vision there is a university, a mercy clinic, and as well hundreds of kids, teenagers, and adults worshiping the most High King. The awesome thing about Vuthy is that he also has “adopted” five boys who he is raising up in a Godly way to teach them and to show them that there is nothing better in this life than God. He pours out into so many so that the hope that he has in God and the hope that God is can keep going and not stay put.
It seems to me that hope is about movement. In the same way that nostalgia is about a backward glance, hope pulls us forward. The power of hope is about change, something better that is in front of us. This movement forward is essential to our well being. If we stop, we stagnate. There is this innumerable amount of things that drag us down and steal our momentum; fear, uncertainty, difficulty, sorrow, pain; these all, like friction, make moving forward almost impossible. As we are overcome by them in this world, there is darkness that settles into our souls. When there is no way ahead there is a weight so crushing, it seems almost like a physical prison.
I feel as if God uses these times to challenge us, to place our trust in him rather than the things of this world. He gives us opportunities to be transformed and in the silences in life when I have clung to God, He has reassured me that emotionalism is not the same as spiritual maturity. What really counts is how much I love, rely on, and believe in Him during dismal, dreary times. Through His wisdom He has kept me safe and has transformed me. Now He’s using these tests to help me graduate to new areas of growth. For, He said that He will make our paths straight He never said that they would be easy.
Where I am living there is no running water, no AC, no stove or oven, squatty potties, showers are in a pond or bucket showers used with rain water, and mice or lizards are company when you sleep. I guess you could say that God has made my living path difficult this month but as I continue to live here and share the hope and love I have it makes things easier. Its funny to see how much more hope I have when I am taken out of the conditions that I am use to, actually that’s not funny its sad that I have to go to an extreme to be able to fully allow myself to place my full trust and hope in God.
So, how do we evaluate ourselves? How do we know where our hope truly lies? How can we tell if we are building our lives on an illusion of a shifting seismic plate that at any moment may fall out beneath us? What will it take to bring it into focus for us? We all hear stories of tragedy and unexplainable loss that have suddenly ripped a person’s perspective into the real, but do we have to wait for something like that? Does something terrible have to happen before we decide to really live for something that matters and to put our hope into something that won’t fade away? How do we do that? I don’t think that there is just one answer, and if there is, I certainly don’t know it. I catch myself just as much as anybody else putting my hope into things of this world.
But I do think we have clues….
Where do we spend our time? If we say we are hoping in eternal things, then eternal things should show up in our schedule. Eternal things should interject into our time and have a presence there. What do we think about? Is all our mental energy consumed by what we are going to eat, or drink, or wear, so that by the time we get to what really matters, we are just too worn out mentally to engage those things? What do we spend our money on? What do we talk about? All these things leave a trail to follow, and we, like a tracker, hunt down our hope in order to pin on something that will last; something that won’t betray us in the end, something that will make a difference.
God wont betray us! Vuthy and the boys that live here show me this each and every day. They are making a lasting impression not only on me but everyone around them. They truly are the Light of Hope, where every day they seek God first and His will and allow Him to use them in any which way. Even though I am teaching them they really are teaching me more on how to live each day with hope and not invest in the things that won’t satisfy but rather in the only One who does.
As Paul writes in Ephesians I say the same “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” (Ephesians 1:16-18a).
