Here Lies Hope

There is a question that stirs my heart. The question asked in Wild Goose Chase…. “What is it that makes you cry, that makes you pound your fist on the table? “

There are many things in my life that I think would be nice to do. There are certain things that scare the crap out of me just to think about doing …. but there is only one thing that does both.
I can look at this thing and because of the fear that is there, I can just as easily talk myself out of it. I can look at my inability, my past failures, my knees knocking so loud that it is drowns out all other noise and walk away wondering what could or should have been.

And I have. I have erected a headstone in my mind that says something like “Here Lies Hope” and the dates of when it was alive and well in my heart. I close the door and reconcile in my heart that yet again somewhere I missed the mark and failed. I didn’t follow close enough. I didn’t run hard enough, I didn’t do this or didn’t do that. And I walk away.

John 11 tells of a time when hope was again buried. A friend of Jesus was sick and died. Lazarus’ sisters were devastated. Plans had not gone as they had assumed they would . Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus had been the one that poured all that she had out at the feet of Jesus. A message had been sent to Jesus, a cry for help. Her brother was sick, but if anyone could heal him it was Jesus. She had faith. She had seen what he could do. Yet, He didn’t come and her beloved brother died. How she must have ached at the devastation of it all. I can relate to this type of pain. I know what it is to pour out all that I have and then have something tragic in my life happen. I stand in the face of the storm that pours and proclaim “MY GOD WILL NOT FAIL!” and then nothing happens. Circumstances go from bad to my worst fears becoming my reality. And I wonder, where did I go wrong? Hope is buried.

John 11:33-37 says “When Jesus saw (Mary) weeping, and all the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? Jesus asked, Come and see Lord, they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, See how he loved him! But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man from dying?” Here lies Hope! And yet this is not the end…

Mary like myself saw things in a certain way… we think if God only would do this, (it seems holy enough) then His name would be glorified in my life! But God had something else planned.
Yes, Jesus wept, he felt the devastation of hopes burial in the life of his friends. Suddenly, the command is given, roll away the stone. Just when I think that Hope is gone, I am willing to walk away and close the door I catch small glimpses of something out of the corner of my eye.

I am learning two things these days, God is leading me from the inside out. Not the other way around, and two sometimes what I think is the death of Hope in reality is the death of what I thought should happen and the resurrection of what truly should be.