Why Choose Hope?
This is a guest post written by my good friend, Josh Holm, encouraging us to cling to hope rather than material wealth. It’s a little long for a blog post, but I think you’ll be empowered if you make it through. Thanks Josh!
Seduction
As I was watching television earlier tonight, I was struck by how many commercials there were advertising products in such a way as to make me feel that I would be fulfilled by them. If only I would buy a Mercedes, beautiful people would gravitate toward me, traffic would part for me to pass through, and the sun would shine on me for the rest of my life. If only I would hang a Plasma TV on my wall, my life would drift into a blissful peace.
Yet, I’m sure that once the flash and hype TV and the Mercedes were gone, I would be in the same place I was before, unsatisfied. Only a little (okay a lot) more money would be drained from the bank account.
Everything we see around us screams “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” How do you hold on to your hope in Christ in a culture like this?
I admit that I am, sometimes very willingly, seduced into purchasing things that I don’t really need. Last year I bought a kayak because I swore it would help me exercise more. It’s sitting in my carport right now collecting dust. I thought exercise would make me feel better about myself, but now the blue kayak sits as another reminder of my unfulfillment.
This seduction travels beyond products and into lifestyles. It is easy to be seduced into a lifestyle of pursuing pleasure and wealth, a lifestyle that promotes yourself instead of others.
This is where I have been living in the past year. Right out of college I was hired on full-time at a software company for a very nice salary. Over the course of the year, I hoarded almost all of that money, giving very little to the church and very little of it to any other charitable organization. Once you start pursuing this kind of lifestyle, it becomes like a wildfire, consuming all that is truly good and satisfying in your life. [Josh, is this backed up by your reasoning. It's a little hyperbolic.]
Have Hope
I believe that we can have hope in America, though. In fact, there is a Juniper tree-juniperus chinensis, just so you know-in Arizona that gives me hope. Sometime long-ago, a fire burned a hole in this evergreen so big that a grown man can walk through it! Upon first glance through the charred, blackened hole through the middle of its prickly bark-protected trunk, you would swear that the tree had photosynthesized its last light particle. Give this conifer a second glance, however, and you will see growth sprouting from its top boughs, glowing a bright green against the magnificent sapphire of the sky! The tree has survived its trial-by-fire and lives, even with its serious scars.
A worldly wildfire has been ravaging my life through the lifestyle I have been living. This fire leaves me unsatisfied and unfulfilled once all of the shine, excitement, and noise have burned into nothingness. But I know that there is hope of fulfillment and redemption in Jesus Christ our Lord. He has promised good things to those that follow and seek Him.
Let’s walk away from this unfulfilling, materialistic lifestyle by committing anew to following Christ. Take courage from the prophet Jeremiah:
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
-Jeremiah 29:13-14
