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What Gives Me Hope?

21 Nov

Dear God, a couple of years ago, Pope Francis was on 60 Minutes, and they asked him, “When you look at the world, what gives you hope?” His answer was somewhat controversial, and I don’t want to pick it apart here. But it made me wonder what my answer would be if someone asked me the same thing. I’m more and more convinced that my answer revolves around the reality of you, Father. You are there. And there’s this hole in us that can only be filled by you. A lot of us will search for things to fill that hole, but those idols will never ultimately do the job. What gives me hope is that there will always be a remnant pointing others back to you, and relationship with you is what life is all about.

I’m thinking of this because I saw a video on YouTube a couple of days ago.

I’ve been watching these two young men “react” to music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s for a few years now. I enjoy them, and they seems to be fine people. But just a couple of days ago the video above released. One of them got baptized. Of course, I watched it immediately. He has quite a story of desperation followed by seeking a path forward and then finding you. He talks about young young men and women you put in his life in Florida who pointed him to you. What gives me hope? You are real, your remnant is here to worship you and love our neighbors, and then we can point others to you. I don’t have to know what any of these people’s politics or morals are. I don’t have to know where they stand on LGBTQ+, abortion, or red/blue politics. I can just rejoice with this young man and his friends/family. He’ll work out his faith with you just as I have over the last 46 years and continue to do. He will have opinions now that you will change over time, just like you continue to do with me. You will teach him. He will grow. And he will worship you and then become part of the remnant that points others to you.

Father, help me to carry that hope into my day. I didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe I was still bothered by something that happened at work yesterday. Maybe I was overwhelmed by what’s on my plate going forward. But all I can do today is what I can do. So help me to simply worship you, love others, and be hopeful that you are real and you will be there when we are desperate and seeking a path forward.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on November 21, 2025 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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Amos 5:1-6a

08 Jan

5 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:

2 “The virgin Israel has fallen,
    never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
    with no one to help her up.”

3 The Sovereign Lord says:

“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,
    only a hundred will return.
When a town sends a hundred,
    only ten will come back alive.”

4 Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel:

“Come back to me and live!
5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;
    don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.
For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,
    and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6 Come back to the Lord and live!

Amos 5:1-6a

Dear God, I was emailing with some friends who are pastors yesterday about a new statistic from Barna that, in 2000, 45% of Americans professed to be “practicing Christians, ” and that number has now dropped to 20%. They defined “practicing Christian” as they self identified as Christians who value their faith and attend church at least monthly. While some will object that “you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian,” it’s still a striking shift for this many people to now be out of Christian community. It makes me wonder what has replaced that community. News? Social media? YouTube? Straight up loneliness?

The pastors and I exchanged emails about the solutions to Americans’ drift away from you. What idols have we pursued and cherished? How do we get them back?

As I’ve thought about this since those emails, more questions have come to my mind: For the remnant that is left, are even we being faithful? What percentage of that 20% is actually pleasing to you in our worship and service? In our discipleship and growth? And which side of that cut line do I fall?

Before I went to bed last night, I was reminded of a question that has burned in my mind since last summer when Pope Francis found himself in some controversy when Christians did not like how he answered a question on 60 Minutes: “When you look at the world today, what gives you hope?” His answer was actually very fitting with Catholic theology and, when that theology is understood by the hearer, wasn’t wrong. But those without context were critical. But it left me to answer the question for myself: “When I look at the world today, what gives me hope?”

My best answer: You put something in all of our hearts that makes us long for you. We know we need something bigger than ourselves. We know we need something to worship. We know we need something to put our certainty in. The problem is we will be rebellious and Satan will offer us all kinds of idols that promise but fail to deliver that certainty. And he knows that we will suffer in that disappointment and it delights him. And when we are disappointed in an idol, we get angry. He loves it when we are angry because a lot of the time we will take that anger and lash out which causes division. Our hearts can be so dark! My heart can be so dark!

I’ve referenced this before, but the movie Jesus Revolution had this great scene between the old-school pastor and the hippie evangelist. The hippie tells the pastor that the other hippies are looking for the right answers (God), but they do not know they are looking for God. So they look in drugs, sex, or even just longing for a society that will reflect their values of love and peace. But they are always disappointed by these gods. Then when some of them find the real God–YOU–they are amazed.

Father, help me to know how to take the people in my immediate sphere who are looking for you but they do not know they are looking for you. Help me to know how to introduce them to you. Help your church to know how to introduce them to you as well. And when I say “church,” I don’t mean just the pastors and staff, but your people. Help that 20% of Americans who are self-professed “practicing Christians” to legitimately be discipling under your Lordship (that includes me), and help us to know how to offer you to our neighbors. Revival will not come from the top down. We cannot mandate revival. But your Spirit can stir and move. And it can grow like wildfire. Help us, Father, to grow in you so that your glory might be realized in all the earth and so that your kingdom will come and your will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, to paraphrase Amos, help us to come back to you and live!

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on January 8, 2025 in Amos

 

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Psalm 107:10-16

23 Jun

10 Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom,
    imprisoned in iron chains of misery.
11 They rebelled against the words of God,
    scorning the counsel of the Most High.
12 That is why he broke them with hard labor;
    they fell, and no one was there to help them.
13 “Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
14 He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom;
    he snapped their chains.
15 Let them praise the Lord for his great love
    and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
16 For he broke down their prison gates of bronze;
    he cut apart their bars of iron.

Psalm 107:10-16

Dear God, the passage from Psalms for the Catholic church today is Psalm 107:23-31, but while I was at mass last night reading these verses I wanted to see the rest of the psalm. It was quite something. It basically talked about all of these different types of people who run from you and how they are often brought back into worship through suffering and struggle. There is nothing like coming to the end of ourselves that will reveal the truth to us about who you are.

It reminds me of my answer a couple of weeks ago when I wondered what I would answer a reporter if asked, like Pope Francis was of 60 Minutes, in the midst of everything in the world that is wrong, what gives me hope? My answer: You have built something in all of us that longs for you. That longs to find you. It’s that God-hole I heard about in my Baptist church as a kid. We (and I’m counting myself in this) all try to come up with idols that we think will fill the hole. Possessions. Relationships. Power. Security. Comfort. Leisure. Influence. Even self-gratification.

As I read the rest of psalm 107 yesterday, this was the group of people described by the psalmist who broke my heart. I don’t know if the psalmist is talking about literal prisoners who committed crimes or figurative prisoners of worlds of their own making. I took it to mean the latter. I pictured someone like Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones’s Diary at the beginning of the movie singing “All By Myself,” drinking heavily, and being wholly unhappy. Of course, that movie is Hollywood (even though it’s set in London) so she finds her happiness at the end of the year in a relationship, but we all know that relationship will be troubled. How can it be whole? She has no peace.

Father, first, help me to identify any idols I have in my life today. Show me anything I am doing to try to displace you from my God-hole with something else. You would think I wouldn’t do that anymore, but of course I do. I’m an idiot. Of course I do. And also give me your eyes to see anyone in my sphere who might be in the gloomy figurative prison described in Psalm 107:10-16. Help me to introduce them to you.

I ask all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2024 in Psalms

 

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“What gives you hope?”

29 May

Dear God, I was just listening to this week’s Holy Post podcast, and they were talking about Pope Francis’s recent 60 Minutes interview in which he was asked, “What gives you hope?” I’ve got nothing but love for Pope Francis, and I would probably do very poorly in a 60 Minutes interview, so I’m not going to throw any shade at his answer, but it did stir up some controversy. I think it’s a fair summary to say he said the basis goodness in people gives him hope. Taking his answer off of the table, and knowing that I have a chance to thoughtfully consider, think about, and edit my typed-out answer, what would be my response to that question? “What gives [me] hope?”

I’ve thought about this a little, and I think it comes down to the innate hunger for you that is in all of us. There is a conscience that gives us guilt. There is a dissatisfaction that comes from self-indulgence. There is an emptiness that accompanies selfishness. It is this existence of the innate hunger we have for you that gives me hope. And it might not happen in this generation. The pendulum might take a while to swing back. This isn’t measured in days, weeks, or months, but years, decades and centuries. From Abraham until now, one can read history and watch the pendulum swing. At some point, we all get disillusioned with all of the idols we chase that we think will give us the peace that only you can give.

It makes me think about the part of the movie Jesus Revolution in which the hippie evangelist tells the established pastor about the hippies and all of the drugs, sex, and self-indulgence they are pursuing. He says (paraphrasing): “They are looking for God. The don’t know they are looking for God, but they are looking for God. And when they find him they are amazed.”

Thinking about the Pope mentioning the innate goodness in people as giving him hope made me wonder what I think sin nature is. What is it in me, and what will make it different on the other side of death and in your new earth? What will be different about me then that is sinful now? I think at least part of it is the fight for survival that exists now that, I think, won’t exist then. The need for resources like food and structure to survive. The need for things of pleasure to give me pleasure. But if my spiritual self does not know a struggle to survive, but just a timeless existence with you in this other realm of earth then will that be the difference?

Father, I heard someone in the Holy Post Podcast say, “Before Genesis 3 there was Genesis 1.” We were created good. But sin entered in. And I have it. Boy, do I have it. But I lay it before you continually–even now, and ask that you please be with me as I learn to consider my life worth nothing to me. If only I may finish the race and complete the task you have given me. The task of testifying to the gospel of your grace. (Acts 20:24)

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on May 29, 2024 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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