Hope 2021

 If I’m honest hope has felt dangerous to me for most of my life. The very crux that my faith rests in has felt dangerous and distant. 

 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick...” Proverbs 13:12a

 As a child I had hope that a procedure of electrical stimulation would give me the legs I dreamed of and desired. After a year of grueling sleepless nights I would finally wake up to hope in the form of new legs. No more long pants in the summers and no more sitting on the sidelines. I would be able to wear shorts without the laughter behind my back. I would be the athlete I always dreamed of being. I remember receiving my suitcase of hope with the electrical battery and the cords that would send shock waves of stimulation into my legs. That suitcase represented hope. It would be deferred for a year but when that year was over I would see my hope secure. After a year passed I returned to the doctor and was told, “Betsy, this did not work for you.” I returned the suitcase and with it my hope. My heart was sick and my hope was lost. 

 I looked at that little white pill and my heart sang. Finally, in my 30’s a medicine that would end the middle of the night wake up calls from a broken bladder that I could not control. No more washing my sheets at 3am, no more midnight rages at a bladder that can’t answer my screams of anger. After a few years of medicines that did not seem to help ease the brokenness, hope had arrived in the form of a new medicine. No more worrying if anyone would ever love a girl that has to change her pajamas and sheets in the middle of the night. This white pill represented hope. It would be deferred for a few hours but when it took effect my hope would be secure. A few weeks later when I stood crying in my room with wet clothes stuck to my frail body I raged at that white pill. My heart was sick and my hope was lost. 

 I looked at that microphone and the budding ministry it represented and felt hope burst alive in my heart. There we were with open bibles and pens in hand not just over the loud speaker but also in my own living room. I found that there was power in my words and purpose in my brokenness. Finally this broken body had great use. This brokenness was for something. After years of suffering in purposeless silence, hope had arrived in the form of a microphone and a ministry. No more feeling separate from the world and no more entering a room feeling like the disabled distorted one. This black shiny microphone and this growing ministry represented hope. It would be deferred until after the session or the study but when it took effect my hope would be secure. Years later when I realized that people had become my god, the microphone my altar, the ministry my mission and my story was my hope, my heart was sick and my hope was lost. 

 So friends, you see hope has felt dangerous to me because the very crux of my faith was not in the Divine but in the deferred. The diagnosis the Holy Spirit has spoken to me in a year of the world’s sickness is that my heart is so very sick. I have sought to find the cure through medical advancements, medicines, microphones, ministries, or the love of man. That is false hope that leads to not just to deferred hope but also to death. The same it true for you; it will not be found in a vaccine, a political party, a new set of circumstances, or that 2021 will be better than 2020. Those are all gifts from God that ease the pain and grief of this broken world but they will never truly erase the pain and grief of this broken world. That is only found in Jesus. 

He alone is our hope. He does not just represent it; He is it! 

 David writes in Psalm 42:5 “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me. Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” 

 Here is our hope – HOPE. IN. GOD. Hope in the Divine and not the deferred. We will find no secure hope in anything other than the Savior. 

 This is what we celebrate at Christmas. We look to the Savior in the cradle, who is the Savior on the cross, and the Savior coming on the clouds. We sing of the hope that came when his majestic baby cry broke the deafening silence after 400 years – the Lamb had come. With his cry in the cradle and on the cross the battle was won and my hope was secure. We also sing of the hope to come when his magnificent battle cry will break the defeating sorrows after a lifetime on earth– the Lion will come. With his cry, the battle will be won and my hope will be secure. 

 I am not telling you to not lament, weep, wail, and hope for a better 2021. As Mark Vroegop says, “To lament is Christian” but so it to hope! I am not going to stop praying for medical advancements, microphones, ministries, and let’s be honest… a man J. But I will not place my hope in them. That has made my heart sick. One is a false gospel leading to a sick heart. The other is a true gospel leading to a secure heart. 

 2021 --- a year of HOPE. Hope in the Divine Christ, not deferred circumstances. I pray the same for you in a year of sickness may your heart hope.