Hope

Here is another ebenezer I, by God's grace and as a testament to His glory, raise to remind me in my frailty of God's goodness and victory.

   I tried to tell the tale leading up to my current spiritual state to a friend, one close enough I call her "sister," and said it started a week ago; no, wait, it started three and a half years ago; it might as well have started with "once upon a time, four years ago…
    I graduated college and came home. Three months later, I started as a "customer service associate" in a call center. I have hated phones since I first got tangled up in the tangible phone line that hooked handset to receiver; I was walking nervously around as I spoke into the device held to my ear. Phones have lost their cords, but I never really lost my dislike. Through my Masters degree, graduation, then the next year and ten months, I worked at a place where what I did was truly work, never play. The end of that job, though still coming closer and closer, has been delayed time and again.
   I tried not to become bitter. I tried to put aside discouragement and accept God's will. God's will had proven to be good every time; I would lean on that past faithfulness and trust Him now. By His grace, I did.
   What I did not do was enjoy life, nor hope for the future. I hoped with certainty that I would have perfect joy and abounding delight in heaven, but I crumbled when I considered the future on earth. I had no guarantee that the dream I was chasing, a teaching or tutoring job overseas, would be any less like drudgery than my current job. I stopped hoping for joy in it, because then if it was drudgery, I wouldn't be hurt. Besides, it was easier to accept the present when I didn't look forward to the future.
     As three years went by, I also lost hope that God would change my attitude to be joyful and grateful in the midst of my job. I'd been praying for it and fighting for it for too long. I loved God and my family, I read His word often, prayed often, I worshipped Him and tried to know Him better; that was all I could do. I left my lack of hope in His hands and told Him to change it if He cared about it, hoping He would. He didn't. I gave up even hoping that He would. As far as possible, I forgot about hope, except to pass over it quickly when praying for faith, hope, and love.
   Without hope for the future, I snatched at every joy I could find in the present. My mind, ever since last week, has tried to work out the connection between future hope and present joy in various small spare moments, but I'm not very far yet. I only know that without hope for the future, joy in the present became something I craved with the senseless, destructive desire of an addict. When I heard a Christian band I'd heard once before was coming to town, I bought a ticket one random night (I find it easiest to spend money for events when I do it on a whim). Here was another chance I might find joy in the present.
     I shook my head at myself when I discovered it was on a Sunday at 7:00 - my church often ends 6:15-6:30. But I slipped out to the concert that night, waited in line to pick up the ticket I didn't have a printer to print, and tried to find a seat. A coworker who had retired almost two years ago tugged on my hand as I wandered down the aisle, searching for a place to sit. Asking if  I was by myself, he showed me one open seat by one of the people in his group - a group of four people over the age of fifty. Considering the band's preference for drums, lights, and loud sound - they've been called the Australian answer to Coldplay - I was amused. They were very good, kind, polite company, and I was blessed to be near them, and to have the seat I did.
    I do not think I can put the actual concert into words. The band had experienced some major struggles in the recent past - one of the two brothers who sang had been diagnosed with a digestive disorder that gave him an uncertain chance of staying alive. The first time I had seen the band, only one brother had performed, since the other had been unable to continue the tour. As children, they had come to America with their dad. He'd been offered a job in the States when they lost everything on a tour. When the reached the states, five children, a pregnant wife, and not much else, he had lost his job almost immediately. God had provided everything they needed.
   Despite - or, knowing the way God so often works, perhaps because of - these circumstances, the main message of the brothers' music is hope. It's not just their lyrics, either. They love what they do, the love the way God has worked in their lives, they love the truth they speak. They love that they can say
"To the one who spoke and set the sun ablaze / To the one who stopped the storm and walked the waves / To the one who took the tree so He could say / You matter, I hope you know you matter" and know it's true.
    Watching and listening, hearing truth and seeing joy, hearing them recount the deeds of God, I knew that I could enjoy my future, that delight is attendant on the children of God - I remembered that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and my life did not have to be years of dreary work. I walked out and asked God, pleading and yet daring to believe that my hope would last. I asked Him not to let this be a spiritual high, but a lasting hope that sustained my present.
   The next two days reminded me that being alive in God, actively seeking His will, was absolutely crazy. We moved my sister to an apartment on the third floor an hour away, took my grandfather to a clinic, cleaned up the cigarrette-smoke-stained baseboards and doors, and put the furniture in order. Oh, and I worked a ten hour day at work, within those first two days. I drove home at nine at night, and had a call from a friend who needed to talk. I did not mind, except late at night - I enjoyed having a crazy life again.
   But the next few days at work tested the hope I had been given. Most of my department (including myself) are discontent, and with the losing of several employees, understaffed. None of us enjoy the work, and several coworkers feel neglected by those higher up. God provided helps - writing a letter of these events to a friend in Greece Wednesday morning, telling the tale to three friends over the weekend, and the prayers that reminded me who I was praying to. But keeping hope was still difficult.
   Till today. Tonight's sermon was on Philippians 4.13. The pastor - a seminary student originally from New Zealand - reminded us that our weakness is never a hindrance to God's glory, God's purpose. The strength God provides is not limited by our imagination, our strength, or our capability. God's weakness is stronger then our strength (I Cor. 15). God will accomplish His glory - and throughout the Bible he did so through weaker men. He used a sling against a giant, Gideon's 600 men against an army, Elijah against the army of a foreign king. The pastor reminded us that we can never mess us God's work; we are not a hindrance. Life is hard, but the difficulties in it are never conquered by human strength. We do not need to be strong to live, nor to glorify God. Our strength is not necessary to glorify God.
     The pastor kept reminding us to pray big, to trust God, to never give up. Moses, reluctant to obey, obeyed and watched things get worse and worse before the Israelites were allowed to leave; then, well, he had Israel to deal with. But God's strength did not change - He just didn't act the way Moses was expecting, nor the way Moses desired. But His strength still supported Moses, brought Israel out, and accomplished His will and His glory. Moses, reluctant, doubting Moses, will be a prophet and a witness throughout the entirety of time on earth. God does plan a glorious life for His children, always with His timing and agenda, not ours.
   This was a reminder that my future is not just work I may delight in, but a life in God's kingdom here. I have a life where I will work for that kingdom and watch it work in me. That, too, is certain hope. God, once again, gave me hope. Once again, He answered my prayer. Once again, I will take a breath and and ask for Him to sustain that hope, to work joy within me within this next hard week, and to glorify Himself and bring His kingdom in me, bringing with Himself hope, faith, and love. Amen.