By: Steve Wilmot
Edgerton, Ohio
Dissatisfied with your Christian life? If so, this rather lengthy excerpt from “Epic” by John Eldredge probably won’t make you feel better. But read it because it will benefit you in the end.
“A curious warning is given to us in Peter’s first epistle. There he tells us to be ready to give the reason for the hope that lies within us to everyone who asks (3:15). Now, what’s strange about that passage is this: no one ever asks.
“When was the last time someone stopped you to inquire about the reason for the hope that lies within you? You’re at the market, say, in the frozen food section.
A friend you haven’t seen for some time comes up to you, grasps you by both shoulders and pleads, ‘Please, you’ve got to tell me. Be honest now.
How can you live with such hope? Where does it come from? I must know the reason.’ In talking with hundreds of Christians, I’ve met only one or two who have experienced something like this.
“Yet God tells us to be ready, so what’s wrong? To be blunt, nothing about our lives is worth asking about. There’s nothing intriguing about our hopes, nothing to make anyone curious. Not that we don’t have hopes; we do. We hope we’ll have enough after taxes this year to take a summer vacation.
We hope our kids don’t wreck the car. We hope our favorite team goes to the World Series. We hope our health doesn’t give out, and so on.
“Nothing wrong with any of those hopes; nothing unusual, either. Everyone has hopes like that, so why bother asking us? It’s life as usual. Sanctified resignation has become the new abiding place of contemporary Christians. No wonder nobody asks. Do you want the life of any Christian you know?”
Wow, that’s tough. But just because it’s a downer doesn’t make it untrue, does it? Have you ever been asked the question Peter tells us to be ready to answer? Me neither.
I saw a video where an actress portraying one of the women at the tomb on Easter morning talks about Jesus. She talks about how scared and disappointed she was when he died.
She explains how she and Jesus’ other followers had hoped he would restore Israel to its rightful place among the nations. No longer would Israel be a lackey of Rome; they would be a world power.
Then Jesus died. What a let-down, she admits. Maybe they were wrong about him, she wonders. But after finding the tomb empty on Easter morning, everything came into perspective.
Jesus hadn’t come to restore Israel on the political stage. He came for a much bigger reason. She says, “We were hoping too small.”
Don’t we all do that? Hope too small? What are you hoping for? Is it God-sized?
Remember “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Remember too that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).
So dream big. Hope huge. Don’t settle for what is easy to believe. Let hope arise in your heart. If God has promised it, he will do it. You can be confident about that. Let hope arise. Be done with the comfortable. Be done with the mundane.
Let hope arise. Let others see your hope in how you act and how you speak. Even if they don’t ask you about it, at least they will notice. They’ll recognize that something — something they’d like to have — something you have — is missing from their lives.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll ask you about how they can obtain it too. And you can tell them about Jesus — the Hope of the world, and One who gives life meaning and purpose.
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.