The world is gray again. There seems to be no point in loving, in believing, in giving – not when everything you touch dies anyhow. And doesn’t it? That’s how the world works. Things don’t stay beautiful and people don’t stay alive. Call it divorce, call it cancer, call it time; it is no lie to say you’re dying today. So am I. So is everything.
And how could you hope? There would have to be someone to trust whose word speaks stronger than what seems so real. And then you would have to believe. Somehow you would have to hold light, would have to be clear and would have to reflect something bright even when you’re surrounded by gray. You’d need to be changed on the inside, be made of different stuff. Then you wouldn’t change colors with the world. Things could go from gray to black without turning you dark – if you were made of something new.
God speaks the words that last; may we dare to trust and hear. Let us give ourselves to God, in tiny bits at first, and let us find the pieces are held safe. We will dare to give bigger pieces eventually, and even bigger, until we’ll throw ourselves off anything as long as the one we trust is there calling.
Let us hear. Let us begin to stay honest when we feel like lying. Let us not pretend to have heard what we wanted rather than what was said. We must learn not to flee from the truth anymore. We must learn to hold still. Even though holding still with the truth can take more trust than leaping off of a cliff.
But if you trust God enough to hold still with the truth (just a little bit at a time), your insides will, slowly, be changed into the kind of stuff that holds light. Hope is not about the color of your world. It’s about the color of what lasts, about the light that comes through sometimes. C.S. Lewis said that the reason artists paint is because they catch glimpses of heaven. Hope is about remembering the light you’ve seen and about looking ahead to the light you can’t see yet.
Hope is being fully alive. If you hope you will be a bright tear in the fabric of this world. You will be a place where people can see through and can be changed.
Dig Deeper:
Prayer:
Lord, help me to trust in You and to hold onto the light You have given me.
