So, the whole regular-or-even-daily posting on gratitude leading up to Thanksgiving didn't pan out quite like I expected, but here's a late one to roll us into Advent.
"I suck but there's hope." That's how some friends and I summed up our lives tonight. It's the Gospel in a nutshell - I'm depraved and helpless, but hope is found in the Cross, in the Christ who doesn't just offer something to be hopeful for but becomes our hope.
His kind of hope isn't the wistful thinking we're accustomed to, the I-hope-I-win-the-lottery optimism that knows all along it will be disappointed. His kind of hope is a sure thing, a promise that we wait for while knowing it's already kept. We have hope that we aren't stuck the way we are, hope for redemption, for the resurrection that cannot be unless death comes first.
The curse of Babel in Genesis 11 is followed by the promise of blessing in Genesis 12. The writing on the wall -- that we're mortal, that we don't measure up, that our false hope will crumble in our fists -- is followed by lions shutting their mouths while Daniel prays and a pagan king opening his to praise the living God. And even as God pronounces to Adam and Eve the dreadful consequence of their sin, he is promising to send the only one who can defeat it.
Like their children and their children's children, we rest in and long for the Savior who came and who is coming. "He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found" -- in every corner of the world, in every corner of my heart.
His kind of hope isn't the wistful thinking we're accustomed to, the I-hope-I-win-the-lottery optimism that knows all along it will be disappointed. His kind of hope is a sure thing, a promise that we wait for while knowing it's already kept. We have hope that we aren't stuck the way we are, hope for redemption, for the resurrection that cannot be unless death comes first.
The curse of Babel in Genesis 11 is followed by the promise of blessing in Genesis 12. The writing on the wall -- that we're mortal, that we don't measure up, that our false hope will crumble in our fists -- is followed by lions shutting their mouths while Daniel prays and a pagan king opening his to praise the living God. And even as God pronounces to Adam and Eve the dreadful consequence of their sin, he is promising to send the only one who can defeat it.
Like their children and their children's children, we rest in and long for the Savior who came and who is coming. "He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found" -- in every corner of the world, in every corner of my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment