People without hope die. I know that is a harsh way to start, but haven’t you seen it? Think of the last story you read or heard of a person that lost hope and took his or her own life. Hope is essential for life.
Without hope despair settles in like a fog. And the fog causes us to trip and fall. The stuff of life we’d normally navigate with ease now becomes insurmountable. A bad grade – usually I’d step right over that. My girl dumped me – usually I’d skirt around that issue. Why? Because hope believes there will be another test and a better grade. Because hope believes there are more girls to date.
But when despair sets in and hope is lost it’s easy to trip and fall. We start to believe there is no better grade coming and there are no more girls to date. Or that dad will never change or that mom will never love me. Or that my friends and my job are as good as it gets. We stop dreaming of a better day.
The Basics is a chance to learn 5 life essentials. 5 things we can’t live without. Or at least don’t want to live without. Hope, dependence, joy, generosity and wonder. Life without these essentials is dangerously impossible.
John Piper in a recent twitter post said: “In Christ, the best is always yet to come. Always. No exceptions. Forever.” Really? How can he believe that? We’re skeptical of his short 83 character thought. Obviously, he doesn’t know my life!
Yet we want to believe “the best is yet to come”, don’t we? Something in us is hardwired to hope. We don’t want to walk around in despair. We want to be around hopeful people.
People around us exist without hope. They are still alive but not really living. Am I a person of hope that can draw others out of despair? Are you?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” – Jesus in John 14:1