Three Good Reasons for Hope in This Terribly Broken World
Near the end of this last decade I fell
into the proverbial "pit of despair." For the first time in years I found myself battling some stubborn bouts
of depression and annoying panic attacks.
There were reasons for my angst. The world
looked so bleak. My faith told me there
was no reason to despair, but my observation of the things I saw around me
seemed to argue there was no reason to believe.
But life goes on. One day I needed to get out of the house to
run some errands. I went to the local
mall and things began to turn around for me.
After wrestling through this problem, I
have come to the conclusion that there are three reasons for hope as we enter
2020. You might say I have re-gained
2020 eyesight in my view of reality. (Yes, I know, but I want to jump into the New Year punning before you
all get tired of it. It's early in the
game, after all.)
So here are my reasons for faith in the
future:
REASON #1:
THERE IS STILL MUCH GOOD IN THE WORLD!
As I roamed around the mall that day, I
looked up and observed a whole mess of other people who were smiling and happy
and friendly. People are happy, friendly, good, getting married,
having babies, surviving and finding things to live for.
Yes, we are a mess. All of us. But when we crawl up and peak out of our little pits of despair--when we
take time to observe the other side of the reality around us--we find that
peace, love and joy still exist in our broken world.
I have
lived in a small town for the past seven years and I bet I could count on one
hand the number of times I have run into any stranger on the street who was not
polite, outgoing and friendly.
One of them
is Kenneth Richardson. I met him in the mall. He drove up on his mechanical
So here is my first piece of advice for the
New Year:
When you are anxious, get out of your
house and around other people. Go to a happy place--to a mall, a dog
park, a school playground, or a church service. There are good and happy people all around. Don't spend your life
watching the news or reading thoughtless tweets. They only show the worst of it
all. Good is still and will always be
stronger than evil!
REASON #2: WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE THE WORLD A
BETTER PLACE!
We aren't the first people in history to
face a seemingly bleak future with good reason to despair. Six hundred years before Christ, after their
persistent rebellion against God and many stern warnings, the Jewish nation was
destroyed and it's people were taken into captivity by the Babylonians.
God told these miserable, rebellious
children exactly what they had done to deserve his abandonment and exactly how
long they would have to suffer their punishment. For 70 years they would live
in a foreign land under a pagan government. It would take them that long to learn which side their bread was
buttered on.
But, as he is prone to do, God had plans to
bring blessing out of the mess they had made of their nation. The Babylonians had some things to learn too,
so God plopped His people down in the midst of that great civilization and told
them what He wanted them to do while they were there.
Jeremiah 29:4-7 says, This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I
carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 'Build houses and settle down;
plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters;
find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too
may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also,
seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into
exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.'
Babylon was a civilized empire, but it was
ignorant about the one true God. During the time of Israel's exile there, the Babylonians
learned much about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (You can read an
amazing account of one way the Empire was affected by the presence of their
Israelite captives in Daniel 4.)
This little bit of history is informative
to those of us who live 2620 years later. Though we have seen glimpses of it's
future glory ever since the coming of Christ, this messy world is not yet God's
Kingdom. It's a sad and sorry mess. But Jesus has told us we are to be like salt
and light, conduits of His goodness and His glory, while we live our lives on
earth.
We who trust in Jesus are meant to be
instruments of blessing to this broken, hurting world. That's really exciting. We have a purpose. A good one. That, in
itself, is one great reason to have hope in the midst of the brokenness around
us.
So here is my second piece of advice:
When you're discouraged and
frightened about life in this new decade, look around for some dark place to
shine your light into. Spread love not hatred. Spread truth, not lies. Spread
hope, not despair. Pray for the peace of your nation and the world--the kind of
peace that lasts--the kind that rests in God's great mercy and compassion, and
His ultimate good purpose for the whole human race. God wants to redeem. That's His business in this world. And you can help bring about His good Kingdom
in the hearts of hurting people you live among. The Good will always triumph. Take hope in that reality.
REASON #3: THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
Speaking of the Kingdom of God, it is
coming! The small glimmers we see of
God's Kingdom in our present dark world are just the beginnings of that
Kingdom--the signs of the promise that one day God will destroy evil and bring
His good rule down to us on earth forever. This is the final, and ultimately the only
reason we have for hope in our present time.
Evil is temporary. Good is eternal. And we who have chosen to put our trust in a
good God--One who chose to put Himself in our place and die on a cross so He
could accomplish redemption for us--we have a good eternity ahead of us.
Yes. It's sometimes been called "pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by." And it's a great encouragement while we slog
through the messes of our lives and the sludge of the seemingly endless evil
consequences of a world gone mad in its rebellion against Goodness. That great overarching hope is the only
reason we have to look for good in the world and work for a better future
between now and when God comes back to set everything right again.
For us who trust in God, there will be no
such thing as an unhappy ending. In fact
that ending, which will come for each of us when we leave this earth, will
really be just the beginning of a lasting life where God has wiped away all our
tears; where there will be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain. Check out that promise here.
So my third and final piece of advice is:
When it feels like the mess will go on forever, that
things will never get better, that things are, in fact, getting even worse, let's
resist that lie from the pit and look up. "Look up, for your salvationdraws near," says Jesus to His disciples in Luke 21:28, and to us in this new
decade. And then, as we rest in the
relief that hope puts in our hearts, let's get down to the business of bringing
God's Kingdom into all the dark places around us. Let's bring that great eternal hope to as
many discouraged human beings as we can before Jesus comes back to rule in
righteousness over the world He created, redeemed, and will restore.
Our faith in a good future rests on a solid
reality. It's founded on the great historical event that brought God down to
earth on that first Christmas 2020 years ago. Since that day when Christ was born, we have had no reason for despair.
So let's go into this new decade confident
and full of peace and joy. And let's do all the good we can do, for the sake of
people in the bruised and hurting world around us who don't yet have this hope
to rest in. God longs for every human
being to know this great hope.
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