yet I will continually hope

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The lie of the enemy sneaks in, often undetected. Cyncism and bitterness and hopelessness rise up and we believe the lie that things will always be as they are, nothing can get better, our mistakes have ruined everything.

They sounds a little like the following.

My brother is so wayward he could never come to Christ.

This hurt was so severe I could never forgive.

I had sex before marriage and now I ruined sex within marriage.

My co-worker is insufferable and I could never have patience with them.

My dad’s heart is so hardened he will never change.

My relationship started off toxic and we will never be able to have a healthy relationship.

Divorce is the only option.

Cutting this friendship off is the only option.

Living in sin is the only option.

The lies slither in, asking us to believe that we are without hope. Asking us to believe that our God is really not that powerful. Asking us to believe that we serve a God who isn’t in the work of redemption. Asking us to believe that people and their hearts are not able to be convicted, renewed, redeemed.

I remember talking with my dear friend Margie once about some lies (unbeknownst to me at the time that they were in fact lies) about dating. This was long before I met Anderson and I was quite sure that if I did certain things in certain ways I would “earn” a good marriage. I had a whole list of rules and regulations and needed everything to be perfectly followed because if not, I believed, a relationship would be ruined, without any ability to change.

She softly asked me, “But what about God and the way he redeems us?”

Our Christian life is a story of hopelessness and an inability change. It is a story of being stuck in our sin and struggles and toxicity. But God, excited to show us a different way, steps in and forgives. And not only forgives! He invites us into his authority, renewing us and helping us as we begin to live a life under his truth and strength.

Marriages restored. Family relationships and wounds healed. Children brought home. Sin struggles overcome. Attitudes changed. Redemption at work.

I read from Dallas Willard once that up until a certain point many Christians looked more at the scene of resurrection than the cross. Now in churches and spaces of belief, we see the cross everywhere. You might start to notice that we often reflect on it in the American church far more than resurrection.

But early Christians wanted to celebrate the work of resurrection because it meant resurrection is our future and our present. We will be alive again literally but also we can be made more alive in the here and now. We can experience the transforming power of God and his Kingdom come in this very day.

To be a Christian is to hope, to believe that God loves to redeem, to believe that new life, new ways, new attitudes, new ways of being can be our reality here on earth.

This isn’t to say that we are promised this in every circumstance. There may be particular sins we battle for the rest of our lives. Our relationship with our parents may never seem to get “better.” Our marriage may continue to be troubled. Our child may not return home.

But still, we can hope. And still, there is reason to praise him more and more.

There are circumstances in our life in need of redemption. We need the healing power and work of Christ. The renewal and redemption only he can bring. So let us pray with hope that he will work! And let us now, in our need, praise God still for what he has done, is doing, and will do. Because redemption will come, whether it is here and now or in our life to come. Of this, we can be sure and it is a safe place to put our hope.