Hope...

Hope.



Now that's something I can not stop thinking about.  I keep listening to this song "Hope's Anthem" on the new record from Bethel Church ( buy it!) and I often cry - not sad - just... full.

I am praying for Hope to rise up around me, within me.  You see my friend just had his heart shattered and frankly it's breaking mine.  I want to fix him.  But I can't.  I want to fix everything around the whole situation, but I feel so inept.  I also don't think it's my place to even try and fix things for my friend and his family.  So I'm praying for him, for his family - and I'm full of Hope. 

I feel like a fool for being so full of hope in the face of their pain and brokenness.  I don't even know what I'm hoping for.  That is the part that makes my logical brain tell me I'm an idiot.  Frankly I look around the world and my heart leaps with Hope. 
I spent my morning listening to some of the top financial minds in the country talk about how the U.S. and global economies are pretty much f^cked.  Frankly, I agree.  Hyper-inflation, the devaluation of the dollar and the collapse of the world system could actually be merely years away. 
I go to facebook and see updates from my friends are in NZ helping with earthquake victims. This morning, I stood next to one of the capsules used to rescue the miners who were trapped in Chile.  Australia has been rocked by floods, cyclones wild fires (in the recent past). Have you forgotten Haiti? I do.  Forget about it all the time, because the next thing is on the news.  Egypt. Libya. Iran. The host of other nations on the brink... I mean, can you ever remember a time where the planet itself seemed to be in such revolt? 

And yet, my heart is FULL of HOPE.  But I don't even know what I am hoping for.

And what the heck is Hope anyway?  I hope I win the lottery.  But I don't even buy lotto tickets.  I think that's the kind of hope that most people refer to, the kind of daydream "wouldn't it be great if..." kind of hope.  That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about something that transcends logic. Surpasses daydreaming and actually causes me to cry on the commuter train.  (yeah ok so I cried on the train today...twice)

This is not merely optimism, or a positive outlook, or glass half full kind of hope.  REMEMBER - I still don't know what I'm hoping for.  (sure I have daydream hopes too - buying a house, growing my business, growing our amazing little church) - but that's not what I'm talking about either.

I think that this Hope - the kind that I find myself praying for and bursting out of me (during commuter train rides) is the kind that endures.  But I still don't know exactly what I'm hoping for.

But...I do know this.  I know WHO I HOPE IN!!!!!!!!  YES!!!!!!!!!WOOOOOHOOOOO!

And although it makes no sense, although I am assaulted with reasons to despair, my heart is weeping with Hope.  For you. For my friend, for his family, for my little amazing church, for my country, for my company, for my dreams and my Hope is this.  Jesus. 

I'll end with a quote from one of the best movies I've ever seen:
|"~ I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.~"


I sometimes wish Jesus was a verb.  I hope you get Jesus'ed.

I hope He continues to do whatever it is He is doing in me. I hope He burns within me. I hope He burns within you.
I don't think we have seen the end of pain. I don't think that everything is going to work out like the end of a Disney movie.  I don't think that everything is going to be ok.  BUT - I Hope.

I hope you do too