High Hopes

"We hope that God will be our hero. Of all the people in the universe, he could...arrange for just a little more blessing in our lives. He can spin the earth, change the weather, topple governments, obliterate armies, and resurrect the dead. Is it too much to ask that he intervene in our story? But he often seems aloof, almost indifferent to our plight, so entirely out of our control. Would it be any worse if there were no God? If he didn't exist, at least we wouldn't get our hopes up. We would settle once and for all that we really are alone in the universe and get on with surviving as best we may.

This is, in fact, how many professing Christians end up living: as practical agnostics. Perhaps God will come through, perhaps he won't, so I'll be hanged if I'll live as though he had to come through. I'll hedge my bets and if he does show up, so much the better. The simple word for this is godlessness. Like a lover who's been wronged, we guard our heart against future disappointment." (taken from The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, pp 69-70)

I read this about five times upon first catching it in the book, and I just started sobbing after the third time, but I had to read it again and again. It grips me. It pierces my soul. It convicts me and rightly so. I am so guilty of this in my life.

I'm a dreamer. My head is regularly in the clouds imagining something else. I'm a writer. I'm always creating a better ending in my head, but that's not real life. In the real world, I don't expect good things. In fact, I'm actually shocked when good things happen to me as if I'm not expecting much from GOD. When did I get so cynical, so closed off and cold?

HE is the only source of goodness. All of it is in HIM and from HIM.

LORD, please forgive this arrogant ungrateful daughter. Help me to see your goodness. Help me to acknowledge your goodness. Help me to rest in your goodness. Rekindle hope in my heart, LORD.

"Awakened souls are often disappointed, but our disappointment can lead us onward, actually increasing our desire and lifting it towards its true passion...I can let the ache lead me deeper into my heart and higher toward heaven." (taken from The Sacred Romance page 201)