My Little Devotional: "Hope Beyond Hope" · 1:28pm Sep 19th, 2021
Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “The Ending of the End”
In this penultimate episode, quite a lot went on, and a number of themes and messages could be drawn from the events…although I believe this blog has touched on most of them before. One I’d like to revisit, however, comes from one of the key parts of the episode.
At this point, we’re all used to Twilight Sparkle “Twilighting”, but this time was a bit different. Rather than doubting herself personally in this episode, Twilight had reason to doubt the worth of her actions over the past nine seasons. Her supposedly-defeated villains had all returned worse than ever, Canterlot lay in ruins in spite of her past actions that had saved and rebuilt it, and even the ponies she had tried to pass the message of friendship onto had apparently deserted each other and left Equestria to fend for itself. It seemed as if nothing she and her friends had done had ever made a difference.
There are a lot of things that can grind us down in this life. There’s normal crises and troubles such as arguments, relationships being broken, fallings out, and stress with people. There’s disasters such as incidents of theft, fires, storm damage, and other acts of chaos that end up robbing us of our peace of mind, our financial stability, or other things both material and immaterial that were valuable to us. There’s the tragedies like cancer, a terrible accident, or, for some of us, becoming a victim of a major, terrible crime that leaves family members dead or scarred mentally and/or physically–the sorts of things that can leave us shattered or make us question our faith. Perhaps, in some circumstances, it can even make us lose it.
Whatever the problem, however, I believe what truly can end up breaking our spirits is the thought of hopelessness. Of futility. Of the fact that everything was for nothing.
I hear a number of songs in modern Christian music pushing the whole idea of “I will praise you in the storm” or similar themes of praising God even when he is silent. That’s one thing to say when we find ourselves in a good place or even on the other side of a difficult time. It’s another thing to say it when we find ourselves in a period of despair and desperation where the only thing that’s keeping us from falling off the end of our ropes is hope for a miracle that never comes. One thing that I can appreciate in the book of Job is that it doesn’t shy away about what a truly hopeless, agonized, and desperate man feels and thinks when God has seemingly decided to ignore his unjust suffering.
Furthermore, while I don’t necessarily disagree with the themes songs like these are trying to push, I don’t necessarily think they’re always the best message to say. After all, if a Christian is in dire straits, and the message that they’re being told is God will ultimately treat them the same way he treats a defiant, bold-faced sinner, and that recompense in their lives for their actions is, in the grand scheme of things, nothing more than “random chance”, then they might wonder what is the point of being a Christian. Or how true God’s love could possibly be.
It’s not hard to get discouraged in the modern age. Everything around us that reports on the condition of our communities, our nation, and the world thrives on reporting negativity, and we, in turn, thrive on pointing it out. All we ever hear about is military conflicts, rampaging pandemics, stories of racism, sex discrimination, class discrimination, and religious discrimination, and one act of injustice after another that we’re powerless to do anything about other than to get angry and disgruntled over. And that’s not accounting for all the times Christians themselves have fallen short, which will definitely get more coverage and public proclamation than times in which we succeeded. At least one out of every six people in the world claims to be a Christian, and yet the world is still the way it is. In fact, we might have been as bad as nonbelievers in “making things worse”.
I believe all of this is enough to make any Christian stop and ask themselves the same questions Twilight asked herself: Is it all for nothing? Is it really making a difference? Is there any real merit to following Christ and trying to do the right thing? Or in the end, will nothing ever really change?
I imagine that the first disciples thought the same thing after Good Friday. Jesus’ earthly ministry had brought a lot of people hope. He had saved many individuals and had changed many lives. Enough to where many of them believed He was the Messiah and that the world was really going to change. And yet, in the span of one day, that seemed to end. The crowds that praised Jesus not long ago were now more than happy to call for His crucifixion. His remaining followers were left scattered, leaderless, and in hiding with no real plan or knowledge of what to do next. And all the work and culmination of what had happened due to the work of Jesus, which had started ever since the prophecies of the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Job 16:19-21; Genesis 3:15) to that very day, seemed to be undone simply by the whim of jealous religious leaders and a foreign occupational government which had little interest in their “mythology”. For all of them, the past few years had to have seemed like an empty waste.
Of course, we all have the advantage of knowing that wasn’t the case. What seemed like the end and a final moment of irrelevance and uselessness was only the beginning. Jesus’ Death was only the end of death itself and the act that secured the salvation of the world (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). In the days following it, the disciples went from timid, hopeless, and defeated to bold and envigored (Acts 2), and the work that Jesus’ Ministry began with Easter Sunday only grew from there into what it is today. As pointed out in my last devotional, what seemed like complete failure was turned to victory by the power of God, but only after a time when spirits were at their lowest and all seemed in vain.
Of the three cardinal virtues, I feel the one that gets omitted the most (at least for me personally) is the middle one: hope. Faith is important to have belief in God, Lord Jesus, and His Sacrifice. Love is important to be able to outreach to everyone. But what bridges the two is hope. What turns faith from a point of drudgery or even depression from fate is hope, and what encourages us so that we never give up loving in a broken, bleak world is hope. Hope is ultimately what lets us look at what appears to be death and failure and yet strive to see God’s hand in it. Hope is what encourages us to keep trying to spread the Word of God and his love to others no matter how many times it seems to fall on deaf ears or amount to nothing. Hope is what tells us that our actions matter now and for eternity even if they end in persecution or death.
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)
There’s an important line in here, but for me it’s so easy to miss during my normal devotional reading because it’s coupled with three imperatives: “your labor in the Lord is not in vain”. Out of all the messages and devotionals I’ve put up on this site, I believe, for the Christian, that is one quote that I would keep up and put on a bathroom mirror so that one can see it and remind themselves of it every morning. While I forget about it and sometimes have a hard time believing it, I think it’s important to say to oneself every day…perhaps several times a day…that there is nothing good we can do for someone else that is ever wasted. Not if it’s done with faith, hope, and love in mind.
If you yourself are feeling broken, lost, and, most importantly, that what you’ve done in your life hasn’t amounted to much, I encourage you to rely on divine hope today. To remember that over 2,000 years ago what seemed to amount to a tragic, crushing, and ultimately pointless defeat led to the salvation for the whole world, and serves as a sign to us all to never give up. To remember that all of us are sowing seed, and even if we don’t see it grow ourselves that doesn’t mean it won’t sprout of its own accord.
Lastly, to remember that nothing that comes down on us in this world can damage or destroy what is to come for all of those who hold fast to the faith.
Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you for the glory of Easter Sunday, in which by the power of Our Lord’s Sacrifice the whole world was redeemed to you and now has the promise of eternal life. As His disciples were renewed in hope by the appearance of the Blessed Savior, grant that we too may be renewed in hope and strive ever more fervently, faithfully, and full of love to bring about the Kingdom of God and to commit ourselves to your will daily. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
The older I get the more I understand why Hope was left in Pandora's jar